August ends and September begins! Bring on the fall and those cooler temperatures!! And this time of the year, I catch myself looking for long leaf pine trees and their browning needles. I nearly stopped on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere, yesterday to gather a few needles. But it was not the wisest thing to do; we do have rattlesnakes here and they love dense vegetation, like you find under young pine trees..... Always err on the side of caution!

I recently finished a commissioned basket for some friends and was pleased with the way the basket unfolded. I used some dyed needles, yellow and pale blue green, to blend with the naturally brown needles. The effect was very attractive and the friends quite pleased with their basket. The center of the basket was a sliced hickory nut but the shape triangular instead of the more typical round or oval. Adding in some halved nut slices changed the angles in the developing basket and made the overall shape more triangular. I used upholstery thread and artificial sinew for binders and kept the stitches fairly simple. What do you think?

With dyed needles, the colors stay, of course. But I recently saw on an Etsy site a basket maker that claimed by using green needles, the green color would remain. This is not true. Green needles do stay green for a while but even exposure to indirect light will cause their green to fade in time and turn the needles, eventually, brown. The only way to have green colored needles in a basket is to dye the needles.

Enjoy your weekend! And make a basket! :-)

Time Flies!!

Where did all that time go?? From February to August is a big chunk of lost time. Guess it wasn't so much "lost" but busy! Aren't we all? So to begin on an early August morning, looks like it will be a good day. Hot and humid in the south but a good day, none-the-less!

I have noticed the browning of the long leaf pine needles on some of the more mature trees. I keep eyeing a grouping of needles in a yard that I pass once a week and just want to stop, sit down on the ground, and gather needles! It is such a nice tree with low level limbs! And beautiful, long pine needles begging to be gathered! I may have to go knock on the door to beg permission if this feeling persists much longer!

 It is always good to try something new and we all love a challenge every now and then. I am a member of an online basketry class. The teacher is wonderful and the tutorials challenging! It is always fun to see the finished product, not only your own but other basket makers' designs. Such creative people in our group! This little basket is a product of one of the many lessons. The weave design around the sides brings out the basket by adding color. And the alternating stitch on each row adds interest. As in
any instructions presented in a class, once you grasp the concept of the lesson, you may be able to "modify and adjust" that lesson to better suit your style or techniques while still meeting the lesson's goal. This was true for me in this lesson. This basket was a tool by which I learned a new technique and then modified that technique to best work for me. There are definitely some tricks in making the decorative weave pattern seen along the sides of the basket. Isn't that what life is all about: live and learn, make it work for you? The handle is made of braided pine needles and attached to the sides of the basket securely with stitches decorated by a bead.

Many people don't realize the time involved in a basket. I find working with pine needles, needle and binder to be much slower than the technique used to put the Charleston Sweetgrass baskets together. And depending on the decorative stitches used, the time may increase significantly! But none of this is important if you are after a special look for your basket. The pleasure is in the doing, not the time you spent....

Enjoy your last few days of summer! School will be starting soon which seems to bring on the fall. But now that I am retired, everyday is a holiday for me!

Have a great day!