Making it Random

The basketry class happens on Friday afternoon, which is not a normal work day for me. Friday is usually taken up with groceries, bill paying, errands of various sorts, and sometimes some weaving or cleaning around the house.

But a couple of weeks ago, I decided to sit in on the basketry class and learn random weave. It is basically the same technique that I used for my pollen balls, but I was unsure how to make a rim. Now I know.
My little basket reminds me of a bird nest. If I put it in a tree, do you think that anyone will take up residence this spring.

Great Balls of Pollen?

Back to the heat setting experiments....

You remember the heat setting that I was doing back in early February?
This was the piece of fabric after I had filled it full of nails. The poly organza was laid over each nail and a small rubber band was wrapped around it. I went through the entire jar of nails. "How many nails?", you may ask. Let's just say that some things are better to remain a mystery.
After binding the fabric, I put it under the heat setting machine. As I mentioned before, the heat setting machine is basically a heating coil and fan. The idea is that the heat slightly melts the polyester fabric and when it cools down, it stays in what ever shape it was bound.

In this case it was poky bits that looked like some close up photos of pollen. Which is what I was aiming for.
I made a form out of reed from a basketry class that I had taken a few years ago and stitched on the fabric
It was a bit of a challenge to cover the entire ball, but with some creative clipping and stitching, I was able to get full coverage. This little guy is probably about 8 inches high.

The problem was that with full coverage I was missing the detail of the beautiful basketry that was the base. So I made a larger one and covered it with the clippings and some of the leftover fabric. I think that this one is my favorite in the series.
Next came the other pollen type. The fabric for this was a silver poly organza that had been bound and scrunched on a piece of PVC pipe and steamed to set it. I read about steam setting synthetic fabric in a sewing magazine while I was looking for something completely different. Instead of using the heat set machine, can bind and then steam your fabric using a vegetable steamer. Let's face it, vegetable steamers are easier to get then a heat setting machine.

This one I had great difficulty with. I first tried to cover the entire ball with the fabric but it ended up looking a bit messy no matter which way I put the fabric on.

So I cut it off and made swirls which looked great when there was only one, but looked silly when the ball was full of them. So I trimmed them to make then narrower. But that didn't look any better.
So finally, I cut them off again and laid the narrower strips along the ball to sort of mimic the inspirational pollen photo.


And there you have it! Great balls of pollen. So far the response has been positive. Very positive. So positive in fact that several of my class mates have asked me to show them how to make the basket forms. It looks like there is a workshop in my future!

Happiness is....

M.....

Making bamboo baskets.


Like I mentioned the other day, I went to a Bamboo Basket workshop yesterday. It was an all day affair and was also wonderful!

There were 12 of us and most everyone was a first timer and made a random weave basket like mine a few days ago.
Here Jiro is giving a demonstration.

Because I had already made a random weave basket, I wanted to try something a bit different. This was I wanted to do. Linda had also been in the workshop a few weeks ago and also wanted to make one of these. Jiro said that was no problem.
First you start out by making a base with the hexagon weave,
Then you make three more for a total of four. The basket has four layers and the bases must all be made first. You then measure them all and chose the smallest one for the inside layer. A metal tool is heated up and applied at the edge of the hexagon base and the spokes are bent up. You only have to do this with the first layer because the bend is so sharp, if you don't use the hot tool, the bamboo will break.
Then you cut three pieces of thicker bamboo and place them in the base. This will hold you hexagon together while you start to weave. At this point, I got so into making the basket that I forgot to take any more pictures until it was almost time to go.
And here is where I got to. The first layer is complete and the second is started. When I got home, I continued to weave and have the second complete and the third layer almost done. One more layer and then the rim.
Here is my table mate Carol. She is an artist who was taking the workshop to see if she could incorporate basketry into her art. Alas, she has decided that basket weaving is not her thing.

But here is her basket. And what, pray tell, is the white stuff that is covering her basket? Gut. As in pig intestines. You know, like sausage casings. The stuff is amazing when it drys. It looks like hand made tissue paper. She says that it dyes beautifully. It has a bit of stretch to it and shrinks a bit when it dries. I will hopefully be able to get a look at this when it is dry.

And remember earlier in the week I said that I wanted to get two scarves woven and one fringed. Well, one is woven and fringed and the one I wanted to fringe is cut and knotted. So I managed to get half my goals finished. I was laid low with yet another head cold. Ugh.

Bamboo Baskets

I mentioned the other day that I was going to take a workshop from Jiro Yonezawa. And here are the results......
The first is a plaited twill basket. We started out making a flat 3/3 twill structure that was 30 bamboo pieces by 30 bamboo pieces. We then shaped it around a piece of PVC pipe that Jiro had cut to size and put a bottom in. Once we finished weaving the twill structure, we finished the top and bottom using pieces of half round reed and caning to hold it in place. We also did a decorative arrow stitch on the top again using the caning. I understand this structure perfectly.


The next piece that we did was a random weave basket. It starts out with a hexagonal structure and once you have the basic basket form you randomly start adding pieces of bamboo to the form. We used medium sized bamboo strips for the base form and thicker and thinner strips for the random part. My grasp of this form is some what shakier than for the plaited twill. Probably because the twill structure is one that I am very familiar with and the hexagon structure is not. There is also a strange locking thing that needs to be done each time you add a new weaver. But I have a chance to learn a little more because Linda had arranged for another workshop tomorrow. I can hardly wait! Except that I wish that I was feeling a little better. I have a bit of a head cold. Again. School's in and the viruses are out. Oh joy.

And I suppose that while I am here I should give you a moth update. I have bagged all the wool on the wall and put Vapona strips in the bags. I ended up with 12 large garbage bags full. And I am not done yet. There are still some yarns that students have had lying around that may or may not be infested. And all of the cottons that the larva may not be interested in, but if eggs are stuck to them and they hatch next to some wool, I am back to square one. All of the left over yarn and any student yarn will be dealt with next week when the first batch is ready to come out. And then I have to put all 12 garbage bags of yarn back on the shelf in some sort of order. Oh my.

Yet Another Thing to do with Tomatoes

I have been being very creative here. But not necessarily in a crafty sort of way. I have made some more stitch markers seeing as I have found an outlet in town for them. And I have been taking an absolutely wonderful bamboo basket workshop from a bamboo master Jiro Yonezawa. It is wonderful to feel such inspiration. I hope to be able to steal some images from Linda's camera to do a blog post on it. Tomorrow is the last day and my mind is working overtime with possibilities.
So maybe I have been more creative than I first thought.
But today. Today my best creativity happened when I came home from work (I did work this afternoon). I had decided to use up yet more tomatoes and make an uncooked pasta sauce for supper tonight. I don't know if any of you have ever heard of putanesca sauce, but (if stories are to be believed) it originated in Italy and was a favorite of , ahem, ladies of loose morals. In other words, ladies of the evening. The story says that these ladies would eat a pasta (we are talking Italy here) that was rich in garlic, olives, and anchovies, and would have breath so foul that they would not have kiss their .... clients.
No clients here, and seeing as we all ate the sauce, no kisses have been spared.
So enough of the history and on to the recipe.....

Uncooked Tomato Sauce

14 black olives - pitted and chopped coarsely
3-5 cloves of garlic - chopped or crushed
1 medium red onion - chopped finely
1 red pepper finely diced - optional
1/4 cup fresh parsley -finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh basil - finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh thyme
a few dashes of Louisiana hot sauce
1/4 cup olive oil - I use extra virgin
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
6 - 8 - 10 -12 tomatoes - it just really matters how many tomatoes you need to get used up quickly. They should be chopped and drained through a strainer for a few minutes.

Mix everything together in a big bowl and serve over cooked pasta. I usually put a bit of olive oil in the pasta and spoon the sauce on each plate. This makes enough for all 6 of us using about 450 g of pasta so scale as you need to. Or just spoon the left over sauce on some bread that had been brushed with olive oil and toasted under the broiler.

oops. Almost forgot to mention the freshly grated parmesan cheese that gets sprinkled on the top of the pasta (I am sure that it will work equally well with the bread)

And I also want to say that as with a lot of recipes, this is infinitely mutable. You don't like olives... leave 'em out. Add and subtract as you want. Just make sure that it never sees a burner (with exception to the pasta of course) and all will be well.


Both Bill and I expressed a desire to have a camera when we sat down to eat tonight. The colours were marvelous.