Market Basket October 25, 2009

 

Maybe it was a mistake in naming this blog Adventures in Quilting because lately it seems that I’ve been posting less about quilting and more about other crafts and hobbies….and here I go again.

 

Recently I made my second First Basket. I say it was the second one because a few years ago I had participated in making a Longaberger basket, but really I just helped the Longaberger basket maker…or mostly got in his way. This time I did more of the making of the basket with a little bit of help from my mom and the teacher.

 

 

The basket I made is called a Market Basket, and Donna Christian was the teacher. Donna has become a friend of the family in the past year, and offers several other classes in other hobbies like quilting, crocheting, sewing and pretty much anything else if you ask nicely and enough other people are interested in making it a class. Yes, that’s a shameless plug for her! She doesn’t have her own website, but if you live in the Nashville area and interested in her contact information, let me know.

 

 

One thing that I discovered early on in making my basket is that there is probably an amnesia involved in the process. The first part of making the basket was.not.fun.at.all. It was complicated, and I can best compare it to trying to dress a siamese twin octopus (because this basket had 15 reed pieces). I can honestly say that if it wasn’t for my mom and Donna’s help, I probably would have given up.

 

 

But once a few rows are weaved in, and the basket starts taking shape, the process does become easier and more fun. I just need to get better at remembering to push down the rows and pull the reeds tighter so that it fits together better.

 

 

When I was done, we dipped the basket in tea mixed with ammonia (oooh, stinky!) to tea dye the basket instead of brushing on a stain. The next day, we dipped it one more time to make it slightly darker. I really like the darker, more subdued color than the bright unstained color. It’s definitely more warm!

 

 

While the first part was.not.fun.at.all, I’m going to make 2 more baskets before I decide if I like making them or not. I didn’t really like sewing the first few times, but I did grow to like it a little more each time. And thus, I tried out another hobby!

 

I included just a few pictures from the basket making process in this post. To see all the pictures taken, go to My Flickr link for the complete set.

 

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