Small stones and giant boulders that have all been dug out of our land here on top of the escarpment.
Okay, so sometimes I forget to soak my dry willow early enough in the week and have to be creative otherwise. This week I clipped my heirloom willow (the original willow here on our land- still don’t know what variety it is) and natural dogwood to make a basket out of this ‘green’ stuff.
It’s a struggle compared to lovely cultivated dried willow, but I also made it more challenging than need be! I was curious about starting a round base and then filling two sides with half moons of weaving to craft an oval. I was also trying for a rounded transition from base to sides so did no waling. Hence, the shape was difficult to work with.
Furthermore, I tried using long stakes from one side of the slate to the other so I had to tackle the border with thick butt ends and thin tips. AND I didn’t leave long enough ends of stakes to weave traditional borders. So In conclusion I have a truly rustic basket in shape, weave & material.
Since this basket is an ode to the heirloom willow and dogwood of the land, I have dedicated it to a rock collection. In it you will see the variety of rocks that come out of our soil. The glaciers rolled over this limestone escarpment dropping souvenir rocks from as far as the Canadian Shield on the other side of Georgian Bay! I sprayed the rocks with acrylic gloss clear coat to bring out the brilliant colours of the rocks just like when they are wet.
Maple rubs up against the basket. You can see the size of the boulder in comparison.
My motive to the size of these baskets was to make small pussy willow and spring flower arrangements in cat food tins.
