Easter  Basket Weaving This Easter during the stay at home orders we decided to make our own Easter baskets. So I brought in all my materials and we set to work. This was my youngest daughter's first basket, but she was a natural Paul has made baskets before and he's got skills! Some students have less patience than others! The finished baskets You can find out how to make your own basket right here on my blog. Just visit part one of my ribbed basketry tutorial.  These baskets aren't just for Easter and you can order everything you need online. Amazon has supplies, but in order to support small businesses I would check out other places first.  I have found good prices at East Troy Basketry, Royalwood, and Earth Guild.  Just do a search of basket supplies and shop around. Part 2 Part 3

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...