How To Make Baskets

Easy to learn, portable, and lots of fun--that's weaving on peg looms and weaving sticks! This book introduces you to the craft and answers all of your questions.

Try your hand at one of the world's most ancient crafts! Basketmaking has been an artisanal staple across cultural and national boundaries for hundreds of years. Now you can make your own beautiful and functional baskets thanks to Lyn Siler's elegant designs and clear, engaging instructions. This magnificent collection of over 30 baskets to make draws on lengthy global basketmaking traditions and includes a variety of techniques and easy-to-find materials. With this book as your teacher, you'll be well on your way to weaving handmade baskets of your own that will be admired in your family's home and used for generations to come. Featuring over 400 illustrations and diagrams which accompany the clear step-by-step instructions, as well as lush, specially commissioned watercolors by Carolyn Kemp scattered throughout, The Basket Book will guide you gently through the process of constructing heirloom baskets of your very own. Whether it's a simple Melon basket, a traditional Cherokee Indian basket, or a dramatic fishing creel, you'll be proud to display your handiwork or give them as unique gifts to friends and family. Begin your adventure with this time-honored craft today!

Techniques include weaving, twining, coiling, braiding, and stitching of natural materials.

Aimed at the beginner, but containing inspirational ideas that may be useful for experienced basketmakers, the projects in this book are practical as well as decorative. The book begins with an introductory section on the necessary tools and materials and moves on to a range of basket projects, starting with a beginner's basket and progressing through baskets with handles, a flat tension tray, a Moses basket, small platter, a shopping basket and more. The baskets can be made from a variety of materials, from the more usual natural cane and willow to the more unusual plaited rush and montbretia leaves.

THE twisting and weaving of Nature's materials, grasses, twigs, rushes and vines into useful and beautiful forms seems almost instinctive in man. Perhaps it came to him as the nest-weaving instinct comes to birds - for at first he used it as they do, in the building of his house. Later shields and boats were formed of wicker work but how long ago the first basket was made no one is wise enough to tell us. Today Indian tribes in South America weave baskets from their native palms, South African negroes use reeds and roots, while the Chinese and Japanese are wonderful workmen in this as in other arts and industries; but basketry has come down to us more directly through the American Indian...

Techniques for creating, dyeing and embellishing baskets.