Basketweaving 103

This time it's wicker. This is the first step to other things in wicker. I probably won't be teaching that here. The larger pieces are too complicated to do without a hands on technique or a good book to look at. Anyway, this will get you started. There are several good books on mini wicker if you want to go on with it.

These are the things that you will need.

1. The ever present Woodsie or a base that you make and drill yourself.

2. A pin vice with drill bit to match your wire or a Dremel with same bit.

3. Wire. I usually use a 26 or 28 cloth covered floral wire.

4. White glue.

5. Cotton crochet thread. This is #20. If this is your first basket#10 would be better. The smaller the number the larger the thread.


6. Small wire cutters.

7. Beeswax. The awful looking lump that I am using was bought at a garage sale in the form of one of those country bunnies molded of beeswax that people hung on their walls back in the 80s. The outside was stuck with dust. I got it for 10cents since they couldn't get it clean without ruining the bunny.........Poor bunny. At least he was put to good use in the end.

The first thing you will do is mark for drilling. I go in about 1/16' from the edge and drill 1/8" apart. There must be an odd number of wires. This disc took 13 pieces.


Next you cut the wires about 2" long for this basket. Dip the ends in white glue and stick one in each hole. Let dry.


Run some beeswax along the crochet cotton and dab the end in the glue. Insert it between two wires and stick it to the base. Keep running the thread through the beeswax as you go.



Start wrapping the thread around the front and back where you started. There should be a loop around each wire. Keep doing this until you are around the basket twice. This will stabilize the wires.



In this photo you see that I am on the second row of loops.



When you get back to the starting point start doing an in an out weave. I did about 10 rows. Then using the tail inside the bottom as a guide I started doing the loops again for two rows.






Then I did more of the plain weave until I got to the top of the basket and then did two more rows of the loops. With the last two rows, I put just a touch of glue on each wire as I went around. That makes it so that you will be able to cut the wires close to the thread without it sliding off.


In this photo you see a handle for the basket at the left. I simply wrapped the last wire with glue and thread for about 1/2" then clipped the wire 1/4" away. I cut the next 2 wires and stuck the end of the handle down between the threads of the second wire.

With the basket having 13 spokes, I had 3 wires between the handles on one side as you see in the photo. The next wire gets wrapped the same way and two wires get cut and the handle stuck in. There should be 4 wires left on the other side to cut.

When this is finished I either crochet or braid a three strand braid that is long enough to glue around the base and the top of the basket

With that, you have a finished basket.
This one, I filled with fruit.


This yummy stuff came off of some fake flower sprays at Wal-Mart! They are usually in the 89 cent section in the autumn. When you pull them off of the stems they look exactly like miniature apples, oranges, plums and grapes and you don't have to do a thing to them.

I see one spot on the bottom section of the basket where I need to straighten the threads. These baskets are very forgiving. If I just run my fingernail over it, it will be fine. I had better go do that now.

Happy Basket making! See you tomorrow.