Pine Needle Basket coming right along.

April 6, 2011

I went to the Green Cove Springs, FL, Clay County Fair yesterday.  I went with my friend Max and her daughter to do demonstrations.  They did bead weaving and I did Pine Needle basket coiling.  A fun time was had by all and I was pleasantly surprised to find so many people interested in the basket work.  Unfortunately I didn't think to take my camera...

I took several examples of my work.  Two that I made last year or so, the red and black one and the one I did with copper wire and Ivy vine.  Max brought along 3 pieces that I had done for her and her family.  The 'fruit bowl' blue and green, the little purple and blue one I made for her daughter and my only waxed piece a trivet.

I took examples of different types of Pine needles, I even collected some the day before on a nice long bicycle ride.  I also took my books and lots of different center pieces along with examples of threads and cards in case anyone wanted to find me.

The weather was gorgeous and I took my 'triangle basket' to work on.  So I thought you might like to see what I have so far.

This shot is from the top. The green stripe is some grass my room mate pulled for me.  I believe it is Muly grass, also know as sweet grass.

Here it is from an angle so that you can see how deep it is so far.  It is a little over 2 in. and I am shooting for 3...I think.  I have incorporated green Long Leaf Pine needle's that Dana sent me from Georgia.  Wish I had some more.

This one is the bottom so you can see how much my stitching has improved.  :-))))

As you can see it is around 9 in. at it's widest.

I have another center like this one with the holes already drilled.  My intentions, always subject to modification ya know, is to make another just like it, only a little bit larger diameter.  Then I will turn it upside down and place it over this one and it will serve as a top.  That way I have to independent baskets or one with a nice tight lid.  We'll see how it goes.

I am using waxed linen on this one and I must tell you it is much easier to work with than the unwaxed threads, even when I drag them over the was they are not as nice as this is.  Unfortunately this is the only color I can get her locally and I am getting a bit tired of brown.  It also comes in very small pkgs.  20 yards for $1.99 at Hobby Lobby, I am already on the 4th pkg at this point.  I may have to break down and order some from off line.  I am just not sure whether I want to order alot in the same color or lots of colors????

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Pine needle basket weaving/coiling.

March 29, 2011

I haven’t been doing much in the way of weaving here lately. But I do keep plugging away at my Pine basket work.

This one is for me. I am going to make myself a basket for my ‘basket tools’. The center is Oak and I have tried some of the local grasses…the green part that you see. I think it is Muly grass, also known as sweetgrass. It measures 9 1/2 in. x 8 1/4 in. so far. Of course I have my quality control personnel on duty also.

I have another piece of this same wood and I may even try my hand at a lid for this basket...I am just not sure I can get the shapes to match up even though the centers are roughly the same size and shape...we'll see!

Completed Pine basket.

March 6, 2012

 

I have completed the first of the two commissioned Pine needle baskets.  I was asked to duplicate the one I did for my sister...you know, the one I forgot to take pictures of before I gifted it to her.

So here is a picture of what it looked like, for the most part.  The center is Pine branch slice like hers, but the wrapped coil was the absolute first coil done.  I couldn't get it to work this time, so after days of effort and frustration, I just did a couple of rows of stitch work and then wrapped.

The russet is #10 mercerized cotton crochet thread double stranded and the dark brown is waxed linen.  I used closed coil wrapping, the v stitch and the fern stitch.  It has a 7 in. base and 2 in. tall sidewalls.

I absolutely love working with the waxed linen.  It is really too bad I can only find it in dark brown here in St. Augustine.  Even then I found it at the local Hobby Lobby, and as we all know I work at Michaels.  lol  None to be had there although we do have the artificial sinew aplenty.

Pics...From the top.

From the side...

From the bottom, believe it or not my signature and the date is signed on the back.  So sorry for the glare.  I wax the wooden center's and I couldn't get any better shot than this.  In this next one I also think you can see some of the green needles I like to incorporate.  I dry them in the house so that they retain their color.  I am told that with time they will turn brown, but kept out of direct sunlight the green lasts a very long time.

Still one more to go.  I think I might reverse the color of the threads next time.  Dark brown for the body and russet for the trim.  (I am a bit bored with these colors in general, I think this is the 5th basket using russet as my base color.  I am indeed looking forward to using another color when these two baskets are completed.)  The center will probably be Cedar.  Stay tuned folks, same bat time, same bat channel.  LOL