My first attempt at creating a picture on a coil basket. Teaching Coil Basketry at BOW 

I haven't posted anything in a while (about a year)... I thought I'd post some pics of my latest project. I've been doing a lot more basketry recently. Since moving back from Egypt I've started working so I haven't had as much time for my crafts. With Summer on its way, however, I hope to remedy that. I taught a basketry class at BOW right before Easter. I taught two sessions and I had some really great students. I will be teaching again around Halloween at the next BOW gathering. These classes always leave me feeling refreshed and inspired. I was feeling inspired after teaching the class... so I decided to weave my kids Easter baskets. After we dyed our eggs I used the extra dye to color some reed and other fiber. I'm not sure how colorfast egg dye is. But I'm not sure how many more years my kids will be hunting Easter eggs either so hopefully it will stay colorful for a few more years.       I hope everyone is having a wonderful...

BOW is just around the corner and I'm doing the final preparations for teaching my class. I have been busy dying fiber and organizing my gear to go. I will be leaving Friday morning and teaching my first class Saturday morning. Before I leave I thought that I'd post the last part of the ribbed basketry tutorial. I hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment of contact me. I will be posting my photos and some information regarding natural dyes soon. I have dyed jute using turmeric, tea, kool -aid, onion skin, red cabbage, crepe paper, and RIT dye. I will have a break down of all my techniques soon. Feel free to check out parts one and two of this tutorial as well. Cheers, Jenn Ribbed Basketry Tutorial: Part 3 Making the Basket Getting Started Once you have your grapevine wreath separated into usable rounds select two of similar size to make your rim and handle. If you need to clean off extra vines and smooth them up a bit you ...

Here is part two of my Ribbed Basket Tutorial. You can find part one here . I will have the final installment out soon. I will also have a pdf download (both with an without photos) that will cover the same material that will be available as soon as I figure out how to make it happen. I have also been experimenting with dyes and I will have a post soon about that. I hope you enjoy it. Cheers, Jenn Ribbed Basketry Tutorial: Part 2 Going Native... Gathering in the Wild: You can also opt to gather some or all of your materials in the wild, vines for example. Grapevine is everywhere around here and with a little asking around I'm sure you can find someone willing to let you collect some if you don't have it in your own backyard. Honeysuckle is also easy to find, and since it grows so fast you can usually find a bit that needs pruning. Honeysuckle is smaller than grapevine and makes good weavers. Other woody vines include Virginia creeper, bittersweet, coralberry, and wis...

Ribbed Basket Over the next few posts I'm going to offer a ribbed basket tutorial. I also have this tutorial available in a pdf format and I will post that once I figure all that out so that you will be able to print your own copy either with or without color photos. This particular tutorial will have 3 parts. The first part is this one and it will cover a little history, what you need to make this basket, and some information on suppliers. Part 2 will cover gathering materials in the wild and dying your own material. And finally Part 3 will cover basic construction of the basket. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to add some videos and more information on dying and gathering. I hope you enjoy it... and PLEASE leave me a comment and let me know what you think. This is the tutorial I'm using to teach my basketry class and I would love to hear any feedback so that I can make the classes I'm teaching in September as good as I possibly can. Cheers, Jen...

Today we set up a geocache and released two travel bugs. What is a travel bug you ask? You may even be asking what is a geocache ... Well here is the story. A few months ago I attended a Texas Parks and Wildlife class about geocaching . I was at my second BOW retreat (becoming and outdoors woman) and it was one of the offered class. I had heard of geocaching , but when I walked into the classroom I had no idea what to expect... I had no idea that this would become a new obsession for me and my family. What I found out was that geocaching is outdoor treasure hunting using a GPS device. It is done on a very large scale. People from all over the world hide containers, small and large, all over the place and then log the coordinates online for other people to find. You probably walk right by geocaches every day and have no idea that they are there. A travel bug is an item, any item, that you attach a special tag to that allows you to track it's progress (using a trac...

This past weekend I went to a BOW retreat in Brownwood, Texas. BOW stands for Becoming an Outdoors Woman. In the state of Texas TPWD (Texas Parks and Wildlife) sets up these events twice a year at different locations around the state. They offer classes in outdoor skills... to read about my experiences at this event and the other one I attended in the fall just follow this link . As a fund raiser they had an auction that featured sporting goods and a few handmade items. I made my first basketry sale at the event. I also volunteered to teach or assist the current teacher in the basketry classes at the next BOW event. I am now feeling inspired to make more baskets. Perhaps it is time for me to volunteer to teach a class at the public library and see how it goes. Cheers, Jenn

I created this pattern while sitting next to the campfire during spring break. I made several of them... they didn't take anytime at all. I found that a 100% cotton yarn like Lily's sugar and cream or the Walmart Peaches and Cream yarn worked best. On some attempts I used a slightly higher quality cotton yarn and found that the finished product was not as stiff and therefor didn't fly as well...they still worked great, however, so by all means use what you have. I haven't tried making this pattern with any other type of yarn although I'm sure it would work great. These frisbees are great indoors or out. Size K crochet hook 2 balls of worsted weight yarn (100% cotton dish cloth quality works best) tapestry needle Round 1: Holding 2 strands together and using the K hook use the magic ring method to SC 6 into the ring. Round 2: 2 SC into each of the 6 stitches (12 st) Round 3: *SC into next SC, 2 SC into next SC* repeat around (18 st) Round 4: *SC into next 2 SC, 2 ...