My son and I had been wanting to try basket weaving for ages. Summer holidays is the perfect time to give this a try, isn't it? We looked things up and then searched around to see what materials we could use.
We found some sedge and I used this in the first attempt. It was not very easy to work with, many of the blades breaking as I wove but I managed a tiny basket. It's starting to dry now and turning straw colour. I will show you another photo when it's all dry. I don't know how well it'll hold... perhaps it will all fall apart when dry but we'll see.
Some of our first tries in progress...
For the second attempt, we decided to try using sisal which wouldn't break like the sedge blades and dried grass for the coil. That was much better. My son carved us some fantastic needles from a piece of oak to push the sisal between the coils - sooooo much easier!
I also decided to incorporate a few sprigs of lavender into my basket so that it would smell nice too. I don't know if you can see the pale purple flowers in the photo below.
By afternoon, we were making good progress on our respective projects. I'm planning a bigger basket so was still working on the flat part of my base, whereas my son is making a smaller, taller one so had started going up the sides already.
And this is where we were at by the end of the evening. We have now run out of sisal so need to go on the search for some more today before we can carry on.
I love "gifts of nature" like that... Just as we enjoyed picking blackberries and elderberries from the hedgerows a couple of days ago which we made into a crumble. Delicious!
I hope you are all enjoying a lovely August.
Best wishes,
Frivole
