Of potential and baskets

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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Thank you :) you do realise I want to see what folks make from the idea too :)


Geoff Forest lives down Loch Doon way, Tom........could we not organise a weekend's workshop course with him on basketry ? He's very good :) makes willow chairs and yurts, teaches greenwoodworking, etc..

http://www.willowcraftdesigns.co.uk/green-woodworking-courses-c29.html

Prices on line are for individuals, but he does say to contact him for a group course/prices/camping.

He and his wife are good people.

atb,
Mary
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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Aye, sometimes money has ten roads that need it :sigh:

Thank you
The basket's just stuff that would have gone to the compost heap; in time it probably will anyway, but for now it's more useful like this :)

There's a myriad of useful plants native to the British Isles, and Europe most of them will in someway make a basket of somekind :cool:

I've still got the typhus mimima (smaller version of the bullrush / reedmace) to use up. Might see if it works like soft rush, and the garden and woods and hedges are alive with fresh greenstuff again :)
Good time to take wiillow for peeling.
I need to do a, 'this is how' post on adding in fibres depending on what I'm using, too.

atb,
Mary
 

tinderbox

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Feb 22, 2007
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I hope it's a long time before that ends up in the compost. It looks like that stuff would make a braw shoulder bag, just the right amount of squishiness, but stiff enough to hold it's shape.
 
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drewdunnrespect

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Aug 29, 2007
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mary

will you ever realose how frigging ausome you really are cos jesus
mary you put the rest of us to shame with some of your skills and knowledge and well this thread proves it
and if you come to the moot would you mind showing me how you do it cheers

drew
 

Toddy

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Drew it's just making a bit of rope and sewing it together :)

It's pretty straightforward really, but I'll happily show you how.
You could try it with sisal rope from the Scouts if you want a shot at it. It's a flexible kind of basketry this type; useful though :) and if you get fed up with it as a basket you could always unravel it and make it into a net.

atb,
M
 

John Fenna

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Oct 7, 2006
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I have seen soles for shoes made in a similar manner - but I think you need pretty tough feet to cope with them!
The ones I saw had woven fibre uppers and looked like tennis shoes or Woolies plimsoles...
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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That's them :) The original deck shoes, but more commonly known now as espadrilles. Great in warm climates :)

Grass is very good for the feet, it's like wool in that it doesn't stink when sweaty and it doesn't keep the feet damp. If you stuff the shoes with soft dry (mind and pick it clean of wee sticks first) moss, or sweetgrass, it can be very comfortable indeed; insulating too. Oetzi's shoes were a grass net filled with grass, and leather outers over the lot.


..............so who's doing the grass shoe tutorial then ?

cheers,
M
 

John Fenna

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Mary refers to the Espadrilles as the "original deck shoes" - the guys I saw wearing them were in rocky desert conditions in Southern Africa. They were deffo home made from local plant materials - but I cannot find any photos of them in my collection....
 
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TurboGirl

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Sep 8, 2011
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Just to clarify, a lot of fibres inc iris leaves, possibly flag leaves which I've saved from the pond, don't need retting? Presumably they're softer but not as hardwearing if they are retted 1st?
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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S. Lanarkshire
No, those ones just get dried and then lightly dampened before use.

Retting is really only used to break out fibres for spinning, like flax/nettle/rammie or to seperate the layers to make sheets of bast fibres from bark such as small leaved lime.

The grasses I used have no long phloem cell strands, the long fine fibres from flax/nettle that we spin.

Most folks who use nettle just peel off the skin which holds the fibres together and turn that into string, but retting breaks out the fine fibres that we spin into thread which we can weave into fine cloth.

Does that help any?

atb,
M
 
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