#btw if you're going out to collect blackberry bramble

[balkanradfem]

Basketry: Take two

So if you remember, a few days ago I attempted to make a basket out of unprocessed, unknown type of bush/tree, and it was fun! It didn’t produce a basket, but I got some practical knowledge.

Since then, I’ve started following a lot of basketry groups and blogs, and the things I’ve learned have made me impressed and intrigued. Firstly, these people have no limits in what they’ll make a basket of; trees, grasses, dry stems of plants, houseplants, dry corn leaves, wild brambles, tree bark, vines, you name it; they’ve made a basket out of it. Secondly, they’re not just making natural baskets, but cordage, out of almost every natural material! They know how to process stems of cattails and all kinds of plants in order to get the fibers and make them into little cords, and then they can even use those cords for making baskets! And the cords can be used for anything you would need a piece of string, like macrame, crafts, tying up plants, it’s incredible!

So now I’m determined to get more of this knowledge, it seems almost godly to be able to go out in the wild and then create practical items out of every piece of grass, stem and tree.

One vital piece of information I’ve gathered, is that you can harvest blackberry bramble using thick gloves and shears, and then you run it thru a piece of old denim in order to scrub all of the thorns from it, and it’s usable for basketry. This information feels golden, because not only is blackberry is perfectly pliable and easy to manipulate in basketry, but it’s invasive and overgrowing the entire field I work on, so making it usable for practical purposes is a dream come true. I will be testing this out today!

So I’m at it again; I’m out and first thing I want to do is collect that same non-identified tree/bush branches in order to try and complete my failed basket. I’m smarter this time, so I’ll be collecting only the thinnest and most pliable branches!

This is how that bush thing looks like, it even has some black berries, which makes me believe it’s a rhamnus (Buckthorn). Anyway, I got a bunch of it, and then went to look for the blackberry brambles.

I found this grass situation on the way, and figured that if everything else fails, I can always try to make some grass stuff? Grass has to be easy to weave with, it’s extremely pliant. The only thing is, this grass’ edge is very sharp. It gave me a papercut almost immediately. Still, I got a bunch. Maybe it won’t matter that it’s sharp.

Okay, so I arrived at the blackberry place, and I have my very thick gloves on, and I’ll try running the vines thru a piece of old denim, to see if it really removes all those thorns:

Not only it worked, it worked immediately and perfectly! I was careful to run it in both directions, but even after running it once, the brambles have been smooth and safe to handle! I was able to hold it in my hand! I’m extremely pleased, and I spent next 15 minutes pulling out the invasive blackberries, and making good material out of them:

My piece of denim is a bit filthy, but it isn’t badly damaged! It will be good for more times.

So, I got home, put all that stuff on the floor, and figured I should go see if I can re-do my last basket. It’s been on my balcony ever since, drawing the attention and sympathy of the onlookers. Here’s what I got:

Since the spines of the last basket were essentially fine, I tore off all of the branches I attempted to weave with the last time, and decided to start again, this time with a bit thinner ones!

And it started off great! Mind you, I was still using a LOT of brute force here, these branches did not want to bend the way I wanted them to, I was being pretty aggressive to make it look like this. The start looks awesome, and then I realized that bending the basket to go up, is not as easy as it was with newspapers, and I struggled a bit to make the bend and to continue weaving upwards.

And here’s a basket! As you can see, I didn’t end it very professionally, I just cut off the ribs and pushed in the handle (it’s not safely inside, it could detach with weight), but this, this is definitely a basket-shaped item! Compared to the last thing I did, this is a good learning curve in the working.

Now, sadly, this basket is barely usable, or more specifically, it’s usable only for the stuff that doesn’t mind being stabbed. Since the material was so hard to bend, when I wanted to put in a new branch, I had to stab it into the basket, and force it into any opening available; I couldn’t tuck it down nicely as you’re supposed to. So at the end, I had to cut a whole lot of branch endings, and the sharp edges have remained everywhere; you can get stabbed just by holding this thing.

Not to despair, this is a learning basket, and now I know there’s a problem like that, I can work on it! I filled that basket with walnuts and pinecones and I’m perfectly happy with how it looks right now.

This basket will also show me how this material stands the test of time; when raw materials like this dry, they usually shrink up, so the basket might lose a bit of it’s shape, and I will see in few months what it looks like.

I still have blackberry bramble, some drying dandelion stems, twine, and my grass, but I did tire myself out making this, so I’ll leave those for another day. And when some of these materials manage to dry, I will try doing the proper process of drying and soaking, to see what difference does it make to use raw vs prepared material. But this is what the raw thing can do! I’m happy to know it.