This spring I received the sad news that the founder of the first household I officially joined in the Society had died unexpectedly. It was just eight months after the loss of one of my dearest friends and a highly stressful winter, and I had a lot of feelings to process. So, as it has apparently become my tradition, I decided to make a basket about it.
My friend had used the byname “Redbeard” for most of the time I knew him. I had red twig dogwoods that needed trimming. I cut a bunch of one-year-old twigs and took them inside to see if I could make a red basket. A couple thornless canes of multiflora rose were growing up through it, so I cut those too. I have never made a rib basket before, but I felt like that was the right thing, so I started with making some hoops out of the longer twigs and connecting them.
I have read that dogwood doesn’t rehydrate well, so it is best used fresh. However , this meant a pretty steep learning curve; the smaller twigs simply snapped when I tried to turn them 360 degrees no matter what I tried. So I pulled out my cleave and split some twigs down into thirds to see if that helped. It did, but now I had two colors to keep track of instead of just the red bark because the interior wood was white.
The twigs were still a bit snappy at the turns, but much less so. I had achieved a high enough success rate of keeping them intact that the basket would hold together. Probably.
Then I spent the entire rest of the day making up a rib basket as I went. I wasn’t really concerned with having a tight weave because I figured on using this as a gathering basket, and letting dirt and detritus fall through would be beneficial. I tried wrapping the handle with some of the split twigs, which worked well.
At one point I needed to add some ribs to widen the basket, so I ended up splitting and putting in some of the rose cane. I didn’t do that in the ideal way, but it seems to have worked.
I stayed up late working in as much of the split dogwood as I could fit. I knew I would need to let the wood dry and that it would probably shrink, so I set it aside in my office, away from the cats, and left it for a few days.
As expected, the wood shrank as it dried. After a few days, I gently pushed the weave tighter, widening the gap in the center.
I will need to fill that. I also need to stick another twig or two into the wrap on the handle because it loosened when the hoop twigs shrank. I contemplated using various materials and cordage for these jobs, but I think I’m going to wait until late winter and cut some more dogwood twigs to match. There’s no rush. The dogwoods responded well to being cut and will have a nice flush of fresh, colorful twigs to choose from. This time I will only cut a few and will try letting them dry a little bit to see if I can get them to a “half green” state before using them.
Not an ideal rib basket, but I’m very pleased with my first messing-around attempt at making one. The color pattern is beautiful, and it feels very solid despite the loosening of the weave. I’m looking forward to having a Toki Tote for wandering my yard and collecting herbs, flowers, and of course basket materials.
Smash the Shell 