May Your Life Be Like A Basket...Useful...Bountiful...Beautiful...

Basketmaster's Weavings is about my passions, much of which revolves around basket weaving. I weave with reed and I love teaching others to weave. Many of the patterns and styles that I show in the blog are geared to the beginning weaver, or even the brand new weaver. If you have been thinking about wanting to learn to weave, then this blog is for you. Throughout the blog and videos I take you step by step through each and every process of weaving. I want you to be successful in weaving the very first time you try. For the intermediate and advanced weaver, my wish is that you take ideas that I show, mix them up a bit, and incorporate them into your own beautiful creations.

Happy Weaving and Baskets of Blessings to all my visitors,

Nancy

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Works for Me Wednesday--Reed Storage


(Before)
Dear Friends,
You may have seen some of this in a previous post, but this time I'm going to give you more of a close up of my reed storage.
Not long ago my husband and I shared an office. It was for his work and for my creating. It was a mess and it was not working. He was using a $5.00 garage sale desk, it's in the back left corner, and his work was spilling onto my crafting/creating table. Anytime I wanted to sit at it, I'd have to pile his work up and move it. He needed his own space and a much larger space at that.

(After)

(Before)


So, his birthday was approaching and I wanted to do something really special. He went out of town on a week long business trip and I got to work. I moved everything out and painted. I enlisted in the help of my in-laws and got his desk and book shelves assembled as well as put in a ceiling fan. I hung curtains and bought extra curtains to cover the garage shelving. You see, in the corner, my reed is stored on garage shelves. I was able to relocate my table to another part of the house, but had no place to move the reed. It needed to stay, so I wanted to make it look nice. I used the extra curtains and sewed them to the right length. I attached velcro to the top of them and adhesive velcro to the garage shelving and I covered the garage shelving with matching curtains. It looks so much better and when hubby is working it is out of site for him.

(After)


It is easy as pie to unvelcro and revelcro the curtains to get to my reed.
Below you can see my maple strips are stored in drainage tubes from the hardware store.
The full pounds of reed are stored in tubs.


The dyed reed are stored in bags that I made. These bags are made from mosquito netting that I got at the fabric store. I don't have the size as some are different. I just sewed bags the size I thought would be right to hold an open pound of reed. The mosquito netting is full of holes so there is no mildew or mold buildup as any damp reed will easily dry. PLEASE NOTE: If you are going to do this, make sure you get MOSQUITO netting, NOT nylon netting. Nylon netting will tear the instant you try to put reed in it. Mosquito netting is really strong.

I store my scraps in some plastic drawers. I know plastic is not ideal, but I make sure the reed is completely dry before I put it in them. I used to store my reed scraps according to color. Now I've found that storing it by size works better for me. If you open one of those bins you will find all kinds of colors in that specific size.

This is my reed storage system. By the way, Mike was extremely surprised to see his birthday present, and very VERY happy with it. As they say over at We are That Family, "This really works for me!"

Baskets of blessings,

Nancy


7 comments:

Juliana/A Hand Woven Life said...

Nancy,
I love this! I know reed can be very very hard to store, but you've done a great job, it seems, of keeping it all together! Thanks for the wonderful ideas!

Barkley's Mommy said...

This looks amazing, Nancy! Thanks for posting with such detail.

~~~Anne

Anonymous said...

I am impressed and blessed to find your site. I am sure you know Longaberger baskets, and although I wish I could do this, these are all I have. My DIL is a rep for them and I have many. Check my blog site for a visit and see one I just got from my son. One entirely different than I have ever seen. Thanks for you ideas. I wish I had your energy.
Peg

Unknown said...

This looks great! I haven't figured out what to do with my reed yet. Most of it is still in my work building at the farm. There is a button on my sidebar for the magazine site. I'm not sure what the address is at the moment. It changed a few weeks ago and I use a bookmark. Gotta run, knee deep in rearranging the crop space!

Abbi said...

Your finished room looks very nice!

Jenny said...

Hi. I was just surfing around some blogs, and I came across yours. It’s pretty nifty and I’m really enjoying my stay here. I’ve bookmarked your site for daily visits, and I hope you’ll visit me. I’d love to have you. :) Have a great day and I’ll see you around the blogosphere. :)

Laurie said...

I found your b log while looking for information and I have added it to my favorites. What I am looking for is recommendations on h
ow to store woven baskets so they don't mildew. I am planning on stocking up on baskets to have to do craft shows and consignment shops.


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