I made 2 frames and then worked some dogwood for colour into the willow rows. The fine pieces of inner bark that peeled off some over-soaked willow was tough and strong enough to use to tie the frame in its shape. The design is again from Jon Ridgeon’s book.
Getting Artsburg Festival inventory ready…
First attempt at baguette basket.
I met my daughter’s boyfriend’s parents last week, and his mother is a fantastic baker! She has her own bakery and would like to display her baguettes in a tall basket. We looked at some options on the Internet and like one similar to this first attempt. It is wider than the one on a restaurant supply site because mine flared out. They used a thick stick to be the asymmetrical side, but my three stakes bundled together could not stay straight. It does make mine somewhat different than the one I saw.
Airy swirl for fresh bread.
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.
Double border.
I had left some willow soaking over a couple of weeks, but happily I discovered it was still in good shape. I decided to test my skill progress by returning to Jon Ridgeon’s First Basket from the first chapter of his book. I made it faster than the two I made earlier from this design and was pleased with the weave and that I managed to keep the circle shape. When I finished the 4-behind-1 border, I didn’t want to cut off the still nice long soft ends. I liked learning from my Latvian log basket that you can weave a second border around the side of the first, so I turned this basket upside down and did the same pattern as the first border. An extra flare on the top of an otherwise simple basket.
Left to right: Lene Rasmussen of Lakeshore Willows; me with Latvian log basket; and Steen Madsen, Danish Basketmaster.
I put my tools in the base to show the scale of this stake spider!
End of Day 1
Close up on Day 2: first border.
My motive to the size of these baskets was to make small pussy willow and spring flower arrangements in cat food tins.
Combined with ALL of the large willow baskets from previous weeks, they were prolific with flowers and pussy willows at our Duncan community potluck held at the Ravenna Hall. 
Two were destined as surprise thank you gifts for my two Associate Deans at the college. I just finished teaching this semester at Niagara College and have decided to return to concentrating on life up here in our Blue Mountains…
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