weaving a harvest basket with materials harvested from my land

I don't know how this is going to turn out - or if it will.  But I want to weave a basket I can harvest fruit and vegies in.

I figure the best way to get this done is to start a thread and gather up all the information and inspiration I can find.  Then try some different things.  This is probably going to take a few months.

There are a lot of willows on the property and now is the right time to harvest.

If it's flexible and somewhat long, you can probably weave with it.  Might as well just try some stuff out.  I made a couple ribbed baskets (search for images if unsure what they look like) with some sycamore maple shoots as the ribs, and dried yucca leaves for the weavers.  Both I just collected from my small suburban garden--the yucca leaves just shed off the plant and I collected the least dusty ones from the ground underneath (and split them into narrower lengths to make weaving easier).  I use them both as harvest baskets, and it doesn't matter how long they hold up because I can make another just as quickly and easily.

I have also woven with willow but it's more of a plan-ahead project.  I'm sure you, like me, have a lot of flexible plant material that could be woven with right now.  Vines, suckers from trees/shrubs, daffodil leaves, rushes or sedges, lots of things.  Try bending the material and if it doesn't snap, cut a handful and make a little basket with it.  Take 20 minutes over it.  It's fun!


Not the best basketry photo, but here's one of my yucca baskets in use last spring.
Edited:  found the better photo!

I'm hopeful to have the basket finished in Augest.  So I figure if I harvest the materials now, it should have time to dry/cure.  

Do you still have the perennial flax I sent you?  The local basket weaver said it was excellent for light weight baskets.

Hans Quistorff wrote:Do you still have the perennial flax I sent you?  The local basket weaver said it was excellent for light weight baskets.

It didn't survive.  I think we get too dry here in the summer and too wet in the winter.  

I know nothing about basket weaving.  I was wondering though if you used green material so it would be soft and flexible, could you then let it dry in basket form?

Sherri Lynn wrote:I know nothing about basket weaving.  I was wondering though if you used green material so it would be soft and flexible, could you then let it dry in basket form?

Is better, from what I've learned, from reading/ watching videos on it, to harvest, dry, then soak, because weaving green materials will often check & or shrink badly. If you're ok with that look and possible weakening of the materials(i.e. for something more decorative than functional), it would be fine, but, for something intended for function, durability, and stability, is best to dry it, first. Living in a log home with lots of checking in what was (apparently) green wood, I can vouch for the concern.

From what I've heard from local basket makers, greenwood shrinks a lot more than wood that is dried and soaked.  Or maybe it was that they shrink unpredictably?