Friday, May 28, 2010

Beginning weaving Wanda's two loaf bread basket

My across the street neighbour ordered a custom-made basket. It is to be rectangular in its base, 13" by 11' and 9" tall with a lid. The base and the lid are to be woven using my home-made clamp supplemented with two other clamps.

The stakes for the base weft (?) are clamped at 1" intervals, and the whole contraption clamped to the work table on my deck.


To maintain the rectangular shape of the base, I hammered nails into the wooden base I used to use as backing for when I hand-drilled holes for trays, hence the vast accumulation of holes in that board. (The drill press I now use saves time and energy.)

This photo shows the placement of a warp (?) stake and an 11" supporting stake to begin the edge of the base.


At this stage I have woven 1/4" flat cane around the two warp stakes and then began to weave the base. It took me almost an hour to get to this stage.






At this stage the base is perhaps half finished and is looking quite promising.

This type of weaving is not my favourite. It is time consuming, intricate work that is slow to show results. But it is what Wanda wants!

1 comment:

  1. This is such an interesting method! It's almost as if you're weaving a rug rather than a basket. Have you done this before? Wow! This opens up so many possibilities! I'm really looking forward to following your progress. Please keep all of us informed!

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