Vines Of Her Green Hair: Basketmaking

Basketweaving is another ancient art whose materials are usually available on any homestead. Unlike the fire-and-earth arts, basketry often requires soaking of plant material, and thus falls into the elemental combination of water and earth. Baskets have been made of weeds, vines, straw, split wood, horsehair, porcupine quills, and bone splinters, in sizes as small as a fingertip and as large as a boat. In any kind of basketweaving, though, the basic craft is the same, and it is remarkably similar to fiber arts. As on a loom with its warp and weft, the basketmaker cuts several “staves”, which will become the upright “warp”, and a considerable length of “rod” or “split”, which will be woven in and out of the staves to fill them in and hold them together. There is “hard” basketry, which is made from stiff, stout saplings or split lengths of wood, usually but not always soaked for more flexibility. “Soft” basketry uses reeds, rushes, sedges, grasses, and straw, often tied with string.

Making a basket starts with crossing the staves, one over the other, until they become a multi-pointed star. They are then fastened together either with lashing (for softer materials) or a small nail (for split wood). At this point it is probably a good idea to cut out a circle in paper that will be the size of the bottom of your basket, lay it down over the star, and mark around it on each stave, so you’ll know where to bend them. If you can make a form, which is a wooden cylinder on a tilted post, angled so that it falls onto your lap and can be turned, all the better. Then you begin weaving the split in a spiral, starting from the center of the star and working outward. Care must be taken at the point when you bend the staves and turn the edge over; aside from that, basketweaving is pretty self-explanatory. The top edge can be finished by turning the staves down and weaving them through the basket, or wrapping the split material over and over around the edge. Let your materials tell you what is best to do.

Your materials will probably be the product of your region. Nearly all Native American tribes made basketry; you might check with the locals to find out what materials were used that are indigenous to your area. Around here, the most famous pioneer baskets were made with split black ash, a tree that grows in swamps and standing water. Due to disappearing wetlands and acid rain, black ash trees are rarer and rarer, and the art is dying out.

Other good plants for basketry include willow and honeysuckle (green willow can be used immediately, but honeysuckle must be boiled for 4 hours and debarked, as must brown willow); wild raspberry vines (dethorn with a heavy glove and boil like honeysuckle if brown); cattail leaves and stalks (dry stalks and split in quarters); dried cornhusks or straw; maple saplings (use thin 1" shoots and split in quarters); dried iris or daffodil leaves; reeds (soak and flatten them with weights and a rolling pin); and wisteria, ivy, or grapevines (dry in dark place and debark if necessary).

Dried straw and cornhusks work best when made into ropes first - spiral a piece of strong thread or twine (or even a cut willow strip) around them, overlapping more pieces until you have a long rope. Then twist the end around and keep spiraling, wrapping the twine around to secure each turn to the last one; you can make a flat disk for a mat or slowly bring up the sides and make a basket. This creates a triple spiral, which can be used as a meditation or spell as you work.

Enspelling a basket is an easy thing to do, due to its woven nature. You can weave things into it, either on the bottom or the sides, such as certain sprigs of herb, scraps of cloth, hair, or twigs. It can be marked with the rune Uruz for strength, or Ken for dryness. Baskets for carrying eggs can be marked with a feather, or one can be woven into it, for lightness and cushioning of the fragile eggs. Baskets are all Goddess symbols anyway, because they are woven in a spiral; you may want to dedicate each basket to a particular goddess. My baskets are a collection that I started when I was still living in the city. People buy and throw away baskets there all the time for decorating purposes, so I trashpicked them. I kept only the strongest and sturdiest, and if they were lined with plastic for holding a decorative plant, so much the better. Now they hang from my ceiling beams (I think the reason people hang baskets rather than other items is because they are light and if they fall on your head it won’t kill you) and somewhat resemble the average photo in country decorating magazines.

The difference between my baskets and the well-to-do homes in those periodicals, however, is that my baskets are working tools. Each year at harvest time every single basket is put into use, and we even use some that aren’t pretty at all, such as wire bicycle baskets from the dump and old plastic milk crates. They are filled with potatoes, turnips, herbs, parsnips, and anything else that we may need. They are filled with dirt-clod-covered produce in a way that would make the owners of those photographed basket collections scream. It’s why I only keep the sturdiest baskets, though, and when one finally collapses through the bottom, it goes straight into the woodstove or is burned on Walpurgisnacht (Beltane) in the bonfire.

A related craft is the making of straw hats. This is classically a craft for the harvest season, after the grain is threshed and the grain straw recoverable. Of all the grains, rye has the longest straw and is the easiest to work, so keep that in mind when you are planning your harvest. Also, grain whose straw is to be used for hats should be cut very close to the ground; I used shears one year. The straw needs to be soaked for several hours in a bucket of water, until it is pliable, and then each piece is gently drawn out and flattened against a hard surface by running a smooth stone over it.

Take three long pieces of straw and begin to braid them. You can also do a four-strand braid, or a three-strand with two straws in each strand. As you braid and come to the end of a straw, add in another. When the braid becomes long enough that it touches the ground (one assumes you are in a sitting position) let it fall back into the water. The more it is kept wet while you work, the better. Keep braiding until you have used up all the straw.

For the assembly, you will need a needle and strong white thread. Take one end of the braid and fold it in a tight oval with no hole in the middle, about an inch long. Stitch that firmly and then turn it, placing another circle of braid around it. Keep stitching and spiraling until you have a large circular coaster of braid, about 5 inches in diameter (3 to 4 for a children’s hat). Then you will pull the next circle sideways, so that it curves down to the sides, making the crown. Do a few more of these, and then level out with more flat braid for the sides. Just above the ears you will want to curve out for the brim, the same way you curved in for the crown, and then you can make the brim as wide as you want. After this, place your hat in the sun to dry.

Since the purpose of this hat is to keep the Sun off your head, you might paint or sew a simple white disk on the very top of the hat, where it faces the sky. This is emblematic of the Moon, the Sun’s opposite, and carries its cooling energies, as well as deflecting the Sun’s rays with its white color.