What kind of basket can be made from this?

There’s a PEP badge bit weave a basket which I have tried a dozen times and my results have been so shambolic I haven’t even posted my failed attempts. It’s the last BB I need for a sand badge. I was thinking about it this morning and looked out my kitchen window and this is what I saw:



I have no idea what it is. When we moved in it had been chopped to within a few inches of the ground. Now it’s close to six foot high. The leaves are little more than half an inch wide, tapered and about two foot long, very fibrous with a rough surface in one direction. I’m guessing a kind of pampas grass?



I’m also guessing I could make an acceptable basket and finish my textile sand badge. Should I use green or dry out? Or do both methods work? What kind of basket can I make? rather than just make something for the sake of a BB, what can I make that would have long term use? The reason I ask, is it’s taking up a lot of space and I didn’t think it would be part of my long term plan for the garden. If it’s providing a regular source of materials that I can use for weaving, it might stay. I’m also wondering what else it could be used for?

Cheers.

That plant looks like it might be Eastern Gamagrass or Sweetgrass.

Have you decided on what kind of basket you are going to weave?

I would weave it while it is still green.

I am looking forward to seeing the results of your BB.

I also need to tackle weaving a basket for the sand badge. There’s a neat tutorial here on how to weave a grass basket.  It looks like your grass may work for that. (Filing this away for my own use as I have some wild rice in my water garden that might work well here also.)

I’ve also ordered if a coiled basket, similar to this, would meet the criteria for the BB. Oh Great BB-Granters in the Ether, what say you? A coiled basket would open things up for pine needle and grass, in particular.

Here are some baskets from that PEP BB (Badge Bit) that look like the poster used a plant similar to yours or might work for you:


from here


from here


from here


from here

I was hoping to find one that bunched the grass together then wove the bunches together though I did not find one.

If you use the grass while it's fresh, it'll shrink a lot when it's dried and leave a holey basket, which might be just fine.

You can also dry the grass. Then, the day before you want to make your basket, you lay all the grass out somewhere and spray it with water. I think you have to experiment to get a feel for how much water you need. Cover the grass with something to keep it moist and leave it overnight. In the morning it should be pliable, and then you can weave a tight basket with it. If it's mushy and tearing, it's too wet.

I’ve also ordered if a coiled basket, similar to this, would meet the criteria for the BB. Oh Great BB-Granters in the Ether, what say you? A coiled basket would open things up for pine needle and grass, in particular.

I thought about doing a coiled pine needle basket just to show a different basketry technique but it doesn't meet the "weave" requirement. One work around that I considered is to make long bundles of the pine needles as usual but don't stitch the bundles to each other. Use the bundles to weave it like any other basket. I would certify that.

I'm thinking a coiled basket would work best. I've been watching a lot of Sally Pointer videos on youtube, and she uses all sorts of stuff to make coiled baskets. One of them, she just used lavender and yarn!



The basic steps are:

 - Dry out your material
 - Get your material damp
 - Coil the material using yarn
 - Sew/weave each row of the coil to the row below it as you coil

Here's  one where she made a burdock basket:





I'm thinking that if you dry out your material and then dampen it, you could probably coil it to make the basket.

I worry about using it in the woven form like my nettle/blackberry basket, because I don't know how strong the material is. (I do know that it was a PAIN to try to weave some grasses. Like you, I made many attempts that didn't even get photos because they were so bad. Some of those attempts were with grass! I found blackberry MUCH easier to weave with, and that's what I made the nettle/blackberry basket--it's the first picture in Anne's post).

You could try cutting some of the stalks and seeing if they weave well fresh (they'll shrink, but it might not be too bad on a 4 inch basket) or dried and then wetted. If it just doesn't want to weave that way, and keeps breaking, you probably have a material that won't weave like that, but maybe you could weave it as a coil basket.

Shawn Foster wrote:I’ve also ordered if a coiled basket, similar to this, would meet the criteria for the BB. Oh Great BB-Granters in the Ether, what say you? A coiled basket would open things up for pine needle and grass, in particular.

I'm looking at the BB requirements, and it says:

In this project, you will create a woven basket from plant material like willow branches, bark, or vining plants.  Harvesting or foraging plant material is encouraged but not required for this BB.

I'm thinking that a coiled basket fits those requiements--just make sure that the yarn/twine/etc you use is natural fiber (if you can use a yarn/twine that you made, that would probably make it less "edge case" and if you used something like blackberry to bind the coils, that would be easy to certify.)

Starting at around minute 29:00 of the BBC Wartime Farm video, you can see Alex weaving a bee hive, using blackberry vines to tie the coils together:

Anne said, "I was hoping to find one that bunched the grass together then wove the bunches together though I did not find one.

Thanks, everyone for putting a name to this:  Coiled Basket

Loved the YouTubes, too.

I just invented another name.

basket + grass = grasket.

You're welcome.

I’ve also wondered if a coiled basket would meet the criteria for the BB. Oh, Great BB-Granters in the Ether, what say you? A coiled basket would open things up for pine needle and grass, in particular.

The BB specifically states WEAVE a Basket.  Coiled baskets are stitched but they do accomplish the initial goal of the BB.
I'd prefer to see woven baskets for the BB but other staff are fine with a coiled basket.  Perhaps more discussion within the staff on the coiled vs woven aspect and BB approval is warranted. (And maybe a clarification on the BB page itself.)

Also, question about other uses: such coarse material can be overwinter mulch. Back to weaving- - -

first of all, can i get some seeds? *LOL*

BUt, as someone who has woven baskets, myself, I would chop it back at the  end of summer, and dry the long blades in a shaded area, spread out so that they get air circulating around them, then bundle when dry.  Thats because most materials, when woven during the green stage, will shrink like mad when drying, and you get a weaker, holier basket that might fall apart.

Drying in the shade will help the grass retain its green color, and when wetting it to work, you will need water to soak it, and  I would use a couple drops of vegetable glycerin in the soaking water.