Sterling Day 12

This morning we finished our black ash baskets in Farmstead Arts. The first step is to remove the wood braces so you can get your basket frame off the block mold. Next you begin weaving. You may need to clamp the corner uprights together to maintain the shape of the basket. Weavers should be of a thickness that is strong enough to straighten out your uprights but thin enough so that it isn't too stiff to weave. the width should be comparable to your uprights if you want a uniform appearance or you can vary the widths of the weavers to add a little character. Start the first weaver behind one of the uprights at the bottom of one of the sides of the basket. Weave it through alternating between being in front and behind the uprights until you get around to where you started. Cut the end of the weaver so that you have enough to tuck behind the other end. Repeat this process until you end up with an inch or two of upright sticking above the weavers. Make sure the weavers are pushed down touching each other to get a tight weave. Next you hided the ends of the uprights. For uprights ending on the inside of the top weave, you will fold them over to the outside, for uprights ending on the outside of the weave fold them over to the inside of the basket. First you probably want to score the upright level with the rim of the basket and peel off half of its thickness. This will make folding easier and allow you to hide it better. Next Tuck the ends of the uprights into the closest weaver below it.

It will start to look like this


When you finish tucking all your uprights cut two pieces that are a little wider than your top weaver. These will be the rim of the basket. Put one on the inside and one on the outside and use a very narrow, very thin coil of splint to tightly thread through the top weaves in a spiral and secure the rims to the basket. Tuck the end in somewhere out of sight.

It should look like this


When you're done you will have a nice sturdy basket


The next thing we did was make a poplar bark basket which takes about a third of the time and effort as a black ash basket. Find a good poplar log that is recently cut, score 2 rings around the circumference about a foot apart, score a line lengthwise between the two rings, and then peel off the bark.


Next mark use a pencil to mark a pointed oval across the middle of the bark that leaves an equal length of bark on both sides. The oval will be the bottom and the rest will be the sides. Score the lines until you are about halfway through the bark or you start to see an impression on the wet clean underside. Fold the bark so the two ends meet and it looks like a pouch.




Next use a glover's needle (leatherwork strength) and some heavy thread to stitch the two sides together.


Cut off a thin strip of bark to use as a rim and stitch it around the top of the basket with the clean side showing out. When you're done you'll have a neat little pouch to keep pencils, jerky, tabaccy, and other such things. On a larger scale this design can be used to make archery quivers.

Here is Bru's finished pouch




After Farmstead Arts we had a community meeting to to make announcements, confront people, and thank people for things they did throughout the week. Then I had 2 hours of farm hand work. First I shoveled out the last of the animal pens in the barn. It was the worst one of all. As much as I like goats, their mess smells so much worse than chickens and rabbits. By the end of the day I was completely covered in goat crap and pee. This actually ended up being a good thing because my next job was to trim the goats hooves. Goats have a fingernail type layer that grows over the bottom of their hooves when they are not walking on rough or rocky terrain. Unless you clip this layer, which doesn't hurt them at all, the goats can develop "hoof rot" which is a fungus called thrush. Because I was covered in goat poo they seemed to be naturally drawn to me and crowded around waiting to be clipped. It worked out great.

On the way home I stopped by the Value Added class to check it out. They had slaughtered a pig a couple days before and were in the process of making salami by hanging it in an air tight fridge for a few months, making thick delicious slabs of bacon by curing them in brine, and using a hickory wood smoker to hot-smoke some pork loin and ham hocks. Oh man I can't wait until breakfast...