How I Began Basket Weaving and then some... (Part 1)

I first learned to weave baskets back in October 1994. I was pregnant with Emily at the time. My story begins much earlier than that though.

I was born August 26, 1964 in Hutchinson, Kansas and I have one younger brother. (I told you my story started long ago.) I've always been involved in craft projects of one form or another. When I was a young child, about kindergarten so age 5, my mother taught me to embroidery a simple chain stitch on tea towels. After that I remember my mother coming up with a craft for me to do each summer. One of the first summers it was making Plaster of Paris molds and painting them. The molds had flowers and Strawberry Shortcake designs. Many of you are too young to remember, but McDonalds plastic lids for their drinks used to have embossed images of Ronald McDonald, the Hamburgler, Mayor MacCheese etc. I would pour Plaster of Paris into those lids and then paint the characters after the plaster dried. One summer it was decoupage, another summer I learned to wheat weave and the next year it was needle point and more embroidery and crewel work. I used to think this was great fun. Looking back as a mother now, I realize mom was a smart cookie for coming up with things for me to do to keep me out of her hair during those long summer months of no school to keep me busy. I would make hundreds of creative creations every summer. Around age 10 I learned to use the sewing machine and away I went with fabric.

Mike and I married while in college. At that time, my creativity consisted of painting t-shirts and actually selling them in some local boutiques. One year for my birthday, we lived near a stained glass shop that had classes, Mike got me a series of stained glass classes and the equipment needed to do stained glass. Only trouble with that class is I was pregnant with Katie at the time and the smell of the flux used in stained glass triggered horrible morning sickness during class.

While working as a registered nurse, I saw in the Parks and Recs brochure, a class for basket weaving. It was just before Christmas and the brochure promoted making a basket as a Christmas gift. I thought, well, I've never done that before why not give it a try.

It was a 4 week series of classes on just round baskets where we made one a week. Looking back, I realize that the instructor herself was rather new at making baskets and I really wasn't taught proper technique at that time. Anyway, for the first class the instructor brings in two of those huge black trash bags that you rake your leaves into FULL of reed. They're huge. She dumps them out onto the floor. It was a major mess. She shows us what we are to make and then lets us pick out the reed from this mess of stuff on the floor. I was lucky to find a piece of round reed longer than 3 feet. I truly remember thinking, ok this is interesting, but I'll never get really involved in making baskets.

As I continued writing, it was easy to see that this post was too long so you will have to wait until tomorrow to read my continuing story.

Baskets of Blessings,
Nancy