Living free... Creative Bush Craft

Basket

 

 

Making use of what is freely available around you is so liberating. You are not so reliant on the commercial world.

 

Of course our ancestors had no other choice. If you needed something you had to have the ability to produce it yourself or know of someone in the community who could.

 

Baskets are one illustration of that. Until recent times here most people may have known how to make this vessel to carry a burden. There are many ways of producing these, and there are some very fine examples from around the world. The Native people of California produce the most amazing works of basketry art. Some peoples believe that when you weave a pattern into the basket you must weave an exit in the pattern to keep the spirit of the object from being trapped.

 

I am not an expert basket weaver and my wicker work is anything but aesthetic! But, it serves a purpose. I was surprised though when I sat down to make my own woven straw basket.

 

 

I used straw. This is freely available where I work. The string I made myself from tow. This is the waste product from making linen from flax. It looks like a mass of tangled horse hair with fluff embedded in it. But, this can be spun into very useful string.

 

I used a hand forged iron needle to 'sew' the basket. If you have ever made a coiled clay pot, making a straw basket is like that. Instead of the clay naturally sticking to itself you have to sew the bundle of straw to the layer below. It has made a very sturdy basket. I made a lid to ensure safe carriage of my forage. Also, the lid makes a great winnowing tool if I need it. It is a very lovely object in it's own right. Things like this seem to create themselves. We only put it together.

 

I did make a net of white cotton string so I can carry the basket more easily whilst foraging. I made some scruffy feather tassels to hang from this. I will in time make the net from my own string.

 

So something from seemingly nothing!

 

You can produce these from other things.. Plastic bags (the non biodegradable sort), rags or long grass from the garden. The magic is out there, just open yourself to it!

I hope to experiment more this year with coiling baskets where you do not use a needle but wrap the straw with some long wide grass.

 

You can see here some hemp, nettle and flax string below the basket.