The therapeutic nature of basket making has been known and used for many years. So, on Saturday, I went for a bit of therapy and spent the day with a dozen wonderful ladies learning about basket making. The class was a basic skills class, revolving around making a useful basket covering skills which would allow us to make more baskets in the future. We had a choice of 3 styles, a market basket, a tote bag and a square basket, which I chose. If I was going to make a useful basket, I thought something to hold fibre or fibre tools would be a good thing to own. This baby will hold a lot more than I thought! The base is 12 inches square but the weaving opened it up another couple of inches. It is a good 6 -7 inches deep. It is made of flat reed, oval reed with handmade ask handles, although I didn't make the handles.
It is a good outside activity though, since it does require lots of water and wet reed that invariably ends up on your lap. The dog and I spent part of the morning outside in the lovely weather, being chided by the birds for being too close to the feeder, while I finished up lashing the rim. This was an awful lot of fun. It wasn't rocket science, but did require some effort, planning and detailed thought. The sad thing is that in Canada, basket weaving supplies are a little pricey.
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