Failure is not...not an Option

Those of you that have been following my blog for a while have noticed that I have had several cliff hangers that have not been addressed. I would like to blame these loose ends on relocating for my new job...but mostly it is because I am a lazy blogger. So here is my small peace offering for those that have been waiting anxiously (but not really) to find out how my basket weaving attempt ended.

Although I started well enough, things soon turned south as I went to start the sides of the basket. Before this debacle, however, I first collected some cherry shoots from my pseudo-coppice in the Alden House garden.

Two cherry faggots for the sides

The next order of business was to do some research. I found a couple of helpful articles and videos online that are worth taking a look at, even just for pure unadulterated curiosity. After picking up what I thought would be helpful tips I got back to work. I sharpened the spars, so they jam into the weavers better, and inserted 12 of them into my basket bottom.

Sharpened spars

In case you aren't familiar (like me) with basket weaving, 12 is a very poor number for spars. In order for the weavers to alternate over-under-over-under continually as you spiral around the basket you need an odd amount of spars...and through four years of mathematics and engineering I am almost positive 12 is not an odd number. Unfortunately I did not know this fact when I started this basket.

Once the spars are in, it was time to bend them to set the hard corner between the base and sides of the basket. I tried several methods to achieve this bend, and none of them worked very well. Boiling made the cherry brittle, bending without modification just fractured the stock, twisting while bending only rent the fibers asunder, so I found the best (out of the horrible solutions) was to cut a small notch through half the thickness of the shoots which helped reduce fracture. This is probably a good reason why you don't see a lot of cherry baskets.

Spars inserted and bent up the sides

Finally I started winding the weavers over-under-over-under-over-over; yup that even number of spars bit me in the ass.

Oh, and another good tip that I found AFTER botching this basket, is that you can reverse the direction of weaving when you start the sides, this reversal makes the basket stronger (don't ask me why).

As can be seen...the sides didn't shape up very well

After a couple hours of trying to weave the sides, unwind them, and try again, I finally surrendered and admitted to myself that this basket was not meant to be. Since this attempt I have done even more research, including videos, books, and blogs, and I have been looking into some basket weaving courses locally. Hopefully my next attempt will be a little more inspiring, but this is The Clueless Woodwright, not 'The Has Everything Figured Out Woodwright' (that just doesn't have the same ring).

Branching Out

Being surrounded by the 17th century and it's crafts and wares on a daily basis tends to seep into your psyche. As a result I have had a nagging obsession with weaving a basket. So I decided I would try my hand at it and see where it gets me.

Step one was finding material. I first tried Green Briar because it grows like a weed around the museum. This turned out to be a big waste of time. It is kinky (not in a fun way), thorny, and quite brittle when trying to bend it, all very poor qualities when making baskets.

Flash forward a couple days and I was cutting nice Cherry coppice shoots for some wattle in a wall. After trimming off the smaller branches I noticed that they were the perfect size and springiness for basket weaving. I bundled the "scrap" and headed off to the shop after work to do some...work.

One cherry faggot!

Copying some of the period baskets that I studied at the museum, I made two sets of three spars for the bottom of the basket. And by studying I mean looking at briefly and observing all the nonessential details and ignoring the actually important construction techniques...I might have to take a better look at some of the baskets in the future.

Six spars makes twelve spokes...now I think I am just making up basket terms.

Next I starting weaving, over and under over and under over and under...you get the point. This is where better observation would have helped me out...I was pretty much just making things up as I went along.

Here is the bottom coming along nicely.

After about 45 minutes I had an almost finished bottom. I tried to add the spars for the sides, but I didn't have stock that was large enough, and I need to research how I can go about bending the sticks at right angles without snapping the wood (maybe boiling first?).

Some spindly looking side spars.

Off to the coppice grove (aka Alden House garden) to harvest some more stock before continuing this basket, stay tuned for part two shortly.