it is—

a gift

Is it the colors—

—or the textures?

The material—

—or the form?

Is it that I go all goo goo-eyed when wild and beautiful beings—

—are willing to work with me while sitting in my lap?

Or that after days and days—

—and days—

— of rain¹—

—I’m ridiculously easy to amuse?

Most likely, it’s some combination of them all.

All I know for sure is that nothing will do—

—but to share a smidgin of this basket making enchantment—²

—with you.³

So here you go!

Making A Coiled Paper Basket

1.52MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Sending Solstice Joy from this drippy hillside—⁴

—to wherever you may be.

See you in January!⁵

1. There is still some snow high in the mountains, but a sudden prolonged warm spell has led to massive melting and a fair bit of flooding in the Northwestern US.

2. And Baba Yaga-esque fantasies…

3. Several of you asked for a wee tutorial on how I’ve been making the tiny baskets, so what could I do but comply? I realized later that I could simply have posted a few photos of a basket in progress, but where’s the total-immersion, hour-gobbling, drawing-erasing, to-do-list-dismissing, weather-ignoring, days-devouring, illustration-wrangling, obsession-indulging, gift-giving, imperfect-but-done pleasure in that?

I would remind you that I am still learning myself, and that this wee document covers only one way to begin and stitch the coils, but I trust you can find the basketry section of your local library, bookstore or YouTube and expand your own experiments from there. My very favorite book on the subject is called Baskets from Nature’s Bounty by Elizabeth Jensen. I’ve had it since it first came out, and have used her tables on gathering materials for myriad other projects. Of course there other resources but this is the one I know best.

And just in case you suddenly want to make one from coffee filter (or other paper) yarn (or want to turn all spare wrapping paper into long lengths of cord), here’s a guide: Of Coffee Filters and Rabbit Holes

4. You can see from the comic that as soon as the snow was gone I completely forgot about bringing my walking poles, but it occurs to me that it’s probably a good habit to get into whenever I’m off in the woods. Anyone have thoughts on this? I’ve noticed that at the very least they are handy for flicking sticks and rocks off the trail—even as they make it a touch awkward to hold a phone for videos :-)

5. Like many another, Beryl and I are taking some time off to light candles, relish the dark, and (most likely), immerse ourselves in some as yet unknown nonsense or other. It’ll be fun to share whatever it is when we return to this cozy underarm gusset of ours. Have a lovely Solstice and see you then.