I've completed my second pine needle basket and I really like it much better than my first...
I used upholstery thread this time which really works well when stitching the basket. It's a lot less visible looking than the thread I used the last time. You use a LOT of thread on something like this, so some of the cooler, more expensive threads that are recommended, like artificial sinew where you split the thread and use a split stitch or other decorative stitch, I'm not ready to use those yet. I don't know how to do those stitches. Gotta find out how to do them!
I like this thread from Hobby Lobby for stitching my baskets. It's called Artiste, #3 nylon thread, 197 yards, 90% nylon, 10% polyester. It comes in LOTS of cool colors. It's about 3.00 for a spool, but you can use your Hobby Lobby coupon and get it for 40% off or probably find it cheaper other places? The colors caught my eye in Hobby Lobby, so I bought these.
I used three walnut slices--one for the bottom, and two on the sides. I'd like to be able to find walnuts around on the ground, but there don't seem to be any walnut trees around in southern Florida that I can see! I purchased these walnut slices from Prim Pines, a basket supply company. You can buy 12 of them for 6.00. They also sell agate pieces, fossils set in resin, and wood pieces predrilled, lots of choices for basket bottoms.
I'm still learning how to add the walnut pieces, it's hard to hold them in place and stitch around them without the stitches being too obvious. I might use nylon fishing line to anchor them while using the upholstery thread all the way around them the next time I decide to incorporate them into the basket.
I've been collecting pine needles off the ground in Alabama and Florida, but if someone wanted to make these baskets and the long leaf pines are nowhere to be found, you can order those from Prim Pines as well. A large bundle--9" in circumference--of pine needles is 15.00. That would make a small basket a little bit bigger than 6" across in size, I think. Even though the needles from Prim Pines are 10"-18" which is MUCH LONGER than the ones I've been finding on the ground, I still like getting mine FREE, even if they are only about 7-8" long. Unless I am able to start selling the baskets I make and I wish I could, I'll keep trying to find the needles for free. It's a little late in the year to get any more, the best time to gather them is in the fall, when they first start falling.
The longer the needles stay on the ground, the more chances they are getting damp and will develop mold spores....Ask me how I know that! :-) The only advantage of using the longer needles is that you need less of them to make a basket!
I've tried soaking them in boiling water for about 30 minutes to kill the spores. But when not using a batch all up, I've found that mold can still develop on the needles after leaving them alone for a week or so. It's best to do very small batches of needles at a time, as far as soaking them briefly, then keeping the ones you are going to use right away in a damp towel.
This basket is for one of my daughters. I'm going to have to make another one very similar to it for me, I really like the size and how it turned out!
Until next time.....
Geez....Make Christmas stuff or try new things? I'm having trouble making up my mind! What to do? So, I'm vacillating back and forth between continuing to make little Christmas sweater ornaments, starting a new pine needle basket and making bibs for my little grandson!
I just haven't felt like getting out my sewing machine which is buried in the bay, along with all the sewing supplies. The basket and the mini sweaters won for now. This basket is going to have walnut shells for decoration, the bottom starts with a walnut shell. Just love the look of the slices! I'm using upholstery thread which is not so heavy looking. I like it so far!
It's going to be another round basket, but I'm already thinking about an oval one for me that will fit better in the RV. Somebody I talked to the other day said their cardinal rule for storage in an RV was NOTHING ROUND...everything stacking and rectangular. No wonder I'm having so much trouble getting stuff to fit in my cupboards! I ought to toss all those little round containers and switch to rectangular or square.
I went to a lapidary class the other day, and now my short attention span and interests have been drawn to polishing rocks and perhaps making some jewelry items. The instructor is going to teach wire wrapping with square sterling silver wire in two weeks. He had some beautiful pieces and facets on the wires which I have never seen in wrapped stones and jewelry. He says the square wire enables you to make the facets, showing off the stones better. Here are a few of his pieces....
I think what I'm going to do is polish a bunch of rocks, take them with me, and that way I'll have some stones to wrap without having to worry about a rock polisher.....
Too many projects in too little time....Ahhhh...But I'm retired, I've got all the time in the world to craft...If it doesn't get done by Christmas, there's always next year!
I learned a lot of course...First, the lady that taught me how to do this, gave me this thick, cotton thread--Coats Red Cotton. I didn't like it, it twisted and knotted upon itself constantly. I don't like how it dominates the basket, but it was part of the lesson/materials in a little kit she gave me, so I used it. It overpowers the shells, I think.
I'm going to make another one right away, same design, but with a more delicate thread. I found some great nylon thread at Hobby Lobby, in really pretty colors. You can use upholstery thread as well, and I bought some of that in a few different colors. Artificial sinew is something else you can use and find at Hobby Lobby in the leathermaking section, but it looks a little thicker, and right now, I'm looking for a more blended, thinner look. I think it will be the difference between night and day on the next basket. There are some cool stitches that can be used in sewing the needles together, so I might try that, too!
I had trouble with joining threads and not having the knots show, but if you follow the directions in Judy Mallow's book, Pine Needle Basketry-From Forest Floor to Finished Product, which I didn't do at first, then your knots will blend in better. The further I got along, the better I got at joining threads.
The other problem I had was keeping the coils straight up as I started the shells row. The finished basket has the shell sides bending in a bit. It's tricky adding the shells, stitching and coiling at the same time. Next time I will try to be more aware of how the sides are shaping up. All in all, I think it turned out nicely.
The finished basket was coated with two coats of Modge Podge Matte finish--thinned with a little water-- that helped seal the ends. I'm not real crazy about Modge Podge on this basket, but that's what the instructor uses. You can see the some little spots of Modge Podge that look like dried glue that. I don't know if that's the way I brushed it on and didn't blend it in enough, or it was too thick to blend in and dried that way. I might use brushed on varnish on the next one. Judy Mallow, the author of the basket book, uses shellac flakes...That sounds like it might be a finicky process and more expensive. I'll have to do some research on that... In the meantime, now I need to find some two inch cedar log branches. They make cool bottom starter pieces sawed into chunks! Doesn't have to be cedar, but I liked the look of these.
Basket making appears to be a new interest and hobby for me...It's enjoyable, it makes me sit for long periods of time, and it's not that complicated....Anything that gets me sitting for awhile and slowing down is a good thing! :-) But first, off to the woods I go!
Oh, boy...something new to learn and kinda fun, until you start having trouble...Pine needle basket making! I saw a lady down our street at the RV park making baskets and just had to stop. Her name was Carol Moore, and she had some beautiful baskets in the works in front of her. She offered to teach me how to make one for a small fee for the materials. I said sure, and sat down to learn....She gave me a small kit that had some Coats Red cotton for lacing the needles, a piece of copper tubing that her husband had flared at one end, which is your gauge to know how many needles to gather at one time, an upholstery needle for sewing, and some pine needles. That's really all you need to get started: LONG pine needles 10-18" long, an upholstery needle, a certain type of twisted nylon thread, or waxed thick thread, or even artificial sinew, a gauge to thread bundles of needles through and a base with holes to start the bottom of the basket. You can use a drinking straw for your gauge if you want to. The gauge helps keep the bundles of needles at a consistent circumference as you wind them around to make your basket.
Carol had the coolest bases for her baskets...circular sections of wood which have predrilled holes in them, agates which her husband coated with rosin and then drilled holes all around the edge and leather pieces which had been etched with designs....She got me started with a simple wooden base....I started stitching. It looked fairly easy. She recommended a book that is VERY clear and well written to get started making baskets, so I ordered it. It's called Pine Needle Basketry and it's by Judy Mallow. Judy has supplies on the Prim Pines website...Carol says that her prices are very reasonable.
I went home and thought, I can do this! It looked easy. HA! But it wasn't. There's a real trick to feeding your pine needles through the gauge. You have to feed them through the center of the previous bunch of needles, and you are supposed to insert them just halfway through to the center of the gauge. It's hard to tell where the needles are in the center of a copper gauge. You also have to keep feeding needles through the gauge before you run out of needles and they all stop at once, giving you a bunch of ends. Then it's hard to start another bunch of needles. (Ask me how I know.) It's hard to know where the center of the copper gauge is, so I kept shoving needles through the gauge too far which ended up being too close to the open end of the gauge. After stitching awhile, the needles seemed to all stop at once, and I was having bunches of ends sticking out. Trying to stitch those down, I got really frustrated. Way too many pokey ends sticking out!
The other hard part is the actual stitching. There seem to be two basic styles of stitching the bundles of needles as you go along. Once is sort of a straight stitch from the back side to the front side, and you just keep "wrapping" the needle bundles catching part of the row below as you go. The other way is to stitch diagonally from the BACK left side of your previous stitch coming forward and through the pine needles to the RIGHT and front of the previous stitch row. It's a much more slanted stitch, but makes for a prettier up and down lacing look to the basket. You'll have to either get a book or watch a Youtube video for how the stitching is done. I'm still trying to figure it out! Carol has been making baskets for over 15 years and her stitching is wonderful!
I ended up trying to take out the stitches and start over. I had made so many "extra" stitches to secure all my loose pine needle ends that it was no simple matter to pull the needles out and use them again. I ended up cutting through the needles with a pair of wire cutters and scrapping the whole thing. Now I have to go get more needles to make a basket. It takes a LOT of needles to make a 6" basket. But I'm determined to try again. It's also not easy to find really long needles..The best ones are 12" and longer. They are called appropriately enough, "long needle pines". There are LOTS of long needles in Gulf State Park, but not 12" and longer. Long needle pines for basket weaving are also found in Missouri, Mississippi and Florida.
The cool thing about pine needle baskets, is all the neat bases and nuts you can use to decorate your baskets as you go...Hickory nuts and walnuts seem to be favorite accent pieces on the baskets. Agates are another popular bottom for the baskets. I am so disappointed I didn't get some agates back at the Diamond Caverns gift shop when we were there. But the agates have to be dipped in some kind of rosin to be able to drill holes in them before using them as a base. Oh, well...I'm sure I will find some on our travels this year....The leather bases with designs burned into them were cool, too....Here's one Carol has started using a leather base.
I am inspired and I am going to try and keep learning how to do this...We leave in a week, and I want to try and get my first basket made with Carol's help before leaving and having to do it on my own....Wish me luck! Hopefully, next time, I'll have a photo of a finished basket I've made--or not! Sigh.......
