Vintage carved cedar chain

I added this vintage hand-carved cedar chain to my Etsy shop today.

I purchased it in the 80s from Harmony Centre for Community Living in Red Lake, Ontario. It appears to be carved from a single piece of 4" by 4" cedar.



One of the workers at Harmony Centre carved this.

VW Centrepiece: Mark 1

I completed this "centrepiece" today. It is a VW shape and it is a prototype model of others to come.


The base is cut from a 5/8" board, and measures 9'' by 7".





The wheels were purchased from Lee Valley tools. Earlier this year I purchased a work bench at a local garage sale. This made it so much easier to drill the holes for the wheel axels since the vices there enabled me to hold the base vertically.





While the finished product looks fine, I cannot add it to my invenory. The holes I drilled at the corners were fine if I put just one cane through them. But the design called for two canes, with one of these providing the VW's curved sahpe. On enlarging these holes, I found they were too close to the edges.

The next model will not have this flaw, and will be a little longer (say 11" by 7"). This will enable me to make larger curves and provide a larger opening for the centrepiece it is designed to carry.

Early Fall in my garden

The grapvines grew well and will provide a good source of vines for my baskets. (The underflooring in the foreground is part of the rerstoration materials for after the flood.)







More grapevines.









A crab apple with fruit for the wintering birds.








Snow in summer, sedum etc.









Our neighbours magnificent maple showing the beginning of fall colours.









A pumpkin, self-seeded with the help of squirrels.

A selection of cards

Having been inspired by the Ottawa Valley Weavers and Spinners Guild to make three cards for their 60th anniversary Exhibition and Sale, I came up with more card designs. Some I will add to my Etsy shop. Others will be on sale locally at various shows. The cards here have a simple cross made from willow joined with a God's eye.



These I call "sunbursts." These suns would be the starting points for such items as the sewing baskets I make.







This is one example of a weaving with flat cane. I describe it in my Etsy shop as a "flag", with uses for a wide range of occasions as a greetings card.






The fish symbol, a symbol of Christians, came easily to mind as Christmas approaches. Easy to make. Effective in design.









This last card, like the others, is blank inside.

Completed Cornucopia

As an added bonus I completed two Christmas Star cards in readiness for the Ottawa Valley Weavers and Spinners Guild Show and Exhibition on the Halloween weekend. Each Guild member is expected to supply three of such art cards. (The third card was a disaster as I attempted to design a spital with beads.)




The cornucopia is finished and is ready to be filled with Thanksgiving items and placed on the communion table at Glen Cairn United Church on the 11th.








Its shape is unique.








The white band on the interior is made from white willow, willow stripped of its bark in the spring. The finishing border is of a style I work on rarely, but it seems quite effective.

Adrian's progress

Today we attended a meeting along with Adrian to discuss his progress with his psychologist and Tamir staff. These meetings are scheduled every six months or so and as needed.

Adrain's blood sugar count is beginning to go down as diet and exercise begin to have some affect on his diabetes. He needs to take long walks daily to bring that count down as well as his weight.

The Doctor is concerned that his anti-psychotic medication and other medications, together with his diabetes, could seriously affect his health. During today's meeting the nurse who accompanies the psychologist took Adrian's blood pressure, listened to his heart, and took his girth measurement. These are baseline data measurements to monitor, in a small way, the effects of his medication. Tamir staff gave the doctor records of his blood sugar since the last meeting as well as details of any behavioural outbursts, and their likely causes.

Adrian continues to have behavioural outbusts at his residence, at his work place, and when he visits us. Such outbursts are distressing to us. Sometimes they are limited to foot stomping. At other times head banging is seen, and at other times he attempts to grab somebody and bite them. It is the latter that results in the loss of the internet for a 24 hour period. His behaviours have escalted to attempting to bite once in the last two or three months. He does not like losing access to U-tube!

The psychologist suggested an addition to the protocol used to reduce these outbursts. She suggested that Adrian be offered a PRN (medication that calms him down) when an outburst seems likely in addition to administering a PRN after an outburst. She suggested this might have the affect of calming him since he might connect the PRN with anxiety and anger reduction.

It would also give him some personal control as to when he might need such medication.

As Adrian's parents we are willing to try anything. His outburst continue to be frightening. We dearly wish that the old, friendly, happy Adrian could be with us again. However, as with many people with autism, psychoses develop and do not disappear. Control is difficult to achieve and the past cannot be retrieved.

Cornucopia continued

I was able to spend two-and-a-half more hours on the cornucopia. That was insufficient to finish it. Still, it is progressing.

I have added another set of stakes to a total of sixty-four. Tomorrow I plan to weave five more rows of three rod waling and then finish the basket with a border. It should be completed by noon tomorrow.

CORNUCOPIA: beginning stages

I was asked a few weeks ago to design and make a "Cornucopia" for the Thanksgiving Service" at my local church, Glen Cairn United Church. Canadian Thanksgiving is the weekend of October 11th, 12th and 13th. Today, I decided to start on this project





As you can see, a morning's work has the cornucopia well under way. I started by fastening two pieces of cane together in an "X" shape using a plastic tie. The tie is practically invisible now. I then used the finest of the canes I have to begin the tail end of the cornucopia. This was woven around the four cane lengths of the "X". The fine cane is natural coloured (undyed.) I slowly began to flare out that cane. When it reached an appropriate diameter in width, I switched to a larger size cane to weave with. This was dyed brown.


I continued to flare the weaving and soon was able to add four more stakes. As the bell of the cornucopia grew wider, I added eight more stakes, and then sixteen.

Currently I have embellished the cornucopia with two bands of flat cane. I have some fine white-willow soaking and hope to add several bands of this to the cornucopia later today or tomorrow. I hope this will be effective as well as beautiful. The next blog will show the finished product, I hope.

I will not see the display on the 12th since I will be taking part in the West Carleton Arts Society's "Expression of Art 2009" Exhibition and Sale in Carp, Ontario that weekend. I will try to remember to ask Anne to take the camera to chuch that day and take photos of the display.

Motor cycle mystery

For some unknown reason today, I remembered a mystery involving a motorcycle of mine that happened around Christmas 1964. At that time I was attending the London School of Economics in London, England, and was travelling back to London from my home in Stoke-on-Trent after the Christmas break. I was riding my trusty BSA 1000 during a snow storm. I would have welcomed the Mad Bomber Hat shown here, but had a motor cycle helmet and newspaper stuffed beneath my jacket to keep me warm.


As the snow thickened, I rode with one gauntletted hand in front of my face to shield me from the snow. On-coming cars dazzled me and I left the road to find myself a few moments later in the middle of a pasture. I turned round, found the gate to the pasture, and returned to the highway. I made the rest of the jouney to my digs in Shepherd's Bush without incident. The gauntlets I was wearing were no way as warm and cosy as the ones shown here.

On the many other occasions I rode past the place where I left the road, I could never figure out how I ended up in the pasture. Between the road and the pasture was a deep ditch. I do not recall going through this. On the far side of the ditch was a barbed wire fence. That was not in my memory either. How I crossed into the pasture without hitting the ditch or the fence is a mystery to this day. I do rember having to open the pasture gate to exit!

(The Mad Bomber Hat and the Mitts are available for purchase in my Etsy shop.)

Custom work as inspiration

Recently, after several "convos" (conversations via Etsy's internal email system), I made the tray shown here as a custom order for a buyer from Colorado. It is similar to a tray I have that features a blue flat cane highlight band and blue Pony Beads for the handle areas. The custom order asked for brown flat cane and red Pony Beads. As you can see, the customer has good colour sense.




This colour choice led me to make two other baskets using the same colour combinations. With a body of natural (undyed) cane, this waste paper basket features a band of brown flat cane highlighted above and below with bands of red Pony Beads. I think the end result is quite attractive. When I showed this off at a meeting of the Ottawa Valley Weavers and Spinners Guild, one comment was that it was too beautiful for a waste paper basket.




This basket uses the same colour combinations of natural, brown and red in a very different design. The waste paper basket above is made in the Appalachian style of flat cane weaving. This basket, with a solid plywood base is woven in the English "stake and strand" method of construction. Similar to the tray design its highlight bands are made from brown rattan cane. Here flat cane weavers are supplemented with bands of round cane waling. The Pony Bead handles echo the tray design.

I welcome other custom orders in colour combinations of your choice.

The Bahamas and Baskets

When Anne and I could tear ouselves away from the sand, sun and beaches of Paradise Island in The Bahamas, we did spend a few moments talking to Bahamian basket-makers. On the site of our resort were several stores featuring Bahamian made basket products.






The "Plait Lady" made coiled baskets as well as "straw" shopping and hand baskets. No photography was allowed within her store. This photograph shows a few examples of her work on her doorstep.









Another craftsperson made baskets as shown from palm leaves.

Prices were in a similar price range to my baskets. The baskets were highlighted in other stores adjacent to Gucci and Rolex outlet stores.

Off our resort there were a dozen or more basket makers in a Bahamian Craft Market, while in Nassau itself, others basket-makers were in the Straw Market.

The Bahamian Tourist bureau asked us to complete a survey just before we left. Baskets were listed on that survey as one of several items we could have purchased.

August Sales take off.

I opened my Etsy Shop on March 2nd. By July 31st I had made 12 sales, most of which were vintage items. I made very few sales of my baskets.

Then came August where I made nine (9) sales, seven of which were actual baskets.

The photos here show the result of the learnings I made with these August sales. They show the vintage cat basket I refurbished being readied to ship to a purchaser from California. It cost almost $80.00 Can to ship this, even though it weighed less than three (3) kg.

At the beginning of August, I had raised my prices a little and offered "free shipping" in Canada and the US. The early August sales showed me this was not a smart business move. Shipping costs came very close to equalling the total $US I received from these sales. After shipping them, I spent a half day revising my prices by adding in shipping costs to Canada and the US in $5.00 increments. Lower priced items had a shipping cost of $5.00. As prices increased, I increased shipping costs to $10.00, $15.00 and $20.00.

On August 21st, an article I wrote was published in the Etsy Storque magazine. Over that weekend I received five more orders, including that for the cat basket. The $20.00 US shipping cost I estimated proved to be way too low, as did other shipping cost estimates. I filled the orders and then spent that Monday morning revising both prices and shipping costs. Prices were increased for almost all items, and so were shipping costs. I tried to ensure that the ratio between price and shipping cost was 3 to 0ne at worst and 4 or 5 to one at best.

I then took part in the Capital Crafters Back to School for the last week of August. There I offered a refund of 15% of the selling price for purchases made in that week. I sold two baskets during that sale to one customer. The two items fitted nicely into one parcel. And its shipping costs matched the costs I had estimated for the larger item. So I was able to refund the buyer her 15% as well as the shipping fee on the second item. That was a good way to end the month.

I hope this last sale in indicative of better sales in the future.