Showing and Telling....

The first thing this morning, I went to find my stain pens and discovered that they were pretty much empty. I think that I mentioned refilling them once before, but I have never shown you.

This is a pretty sneaky trick. You pay three dollars for the little pens...A few drops. You pay five for the can....Lots of drops.

When my pen runs out, if the tip is still in good shape, I simply remove it with a pair of pliers, carefully.

I do the whole operation on a paper plate or other disposable material. The cup is a discarded one that will hold the pen upright. I then simply fill a dropper with stain from the can and put the nose of it in the pen and squeeze. It is surprising how little of the stain it takes to refill the pen. The last step is to put the point back in. Be sure to get the flat end in and the chiseled end out. Do the whole process slowly. The stain may leak out if you fill it too fast and get too much inside. Also when you put the point back in, do that slowly too. Have paper towels handy to clean up after.

Giac wrote a comment this morning that got me thinking. He said that he wanted to try basket weaving. I realized that some of the newer readers may not know that there are quite a few different tutorials for different types of baskets in the blog. If you want to dig through them to find one that you like or for ideas, just go to the side bar, labels section and look for "baskets". I hadn't looked at the numbers in a while.....There are 45 entries in that section. Not all are tutorials....I am getting way too long winded!
Anyway, I also realized that there were no diagrams for the basic wicker weaves that I use in some of them.

Here you go. They are pretty self explanatory. One and two are simply over and under.

Three is what I call an over hand loop. The thread is carried along on the outside of the basket and forms a rope like row. It is usually the first thing I do on a basket or other wicker to stabilize the wires. Usually two rows.

Number four is the underhand loop and is just the third one in reverse. The rope forms on the inside of the basket and the outside looks like the wires are wrapped.

Now you know all that is needed to make a pretty good basket. The only other thing that you need to know is, always work with an odd number of wires if you want to save yourself some grief when doing plain weaving.

Here's the hamper that I started yesterday. I decided to make it open, with carrying rods on the sides.

This one was made as follows:

Starting at the center back. Two rows of overhand loops.

1.Ten rows of plain weave.

2.Two rows of overhand loops.

3.Five rows of underhand loops.

4.Two rows of overhand loops.

5.Five rows of underhand loops.

6.Two rows of overhand loops.

7.Ten rows of plain weave.

8.Two rows of overhand loops.

After that, I cut six strands of the thread and braided a three strand braid. Two threads in each strand. I made sure to keep the threads laying flat. I did one long braid, starting with the threads about a yard long. It's always good to have extra....Bad to not have enough.

I glued a braid around the edge of the platform, butting the ends. No overlap. Then I ran another braid around the top outside edge and one around the top inside edge. I used white glue for this.

I used pieces of leather to cover the center of the handles and glued the rods straight to the sides of the basket. The I cut short pieces to hold that in place. Three on each side. I also covered the handle ends on the rods.

Even with the rods in place, it fits nicely in the storage space for the second floor, along with the other basket that I had in the old weaving room.....That reminds me. That is now vacant. What to do with that?

Zar and Tessie started winding balls from some of the thread that was on the niddy noddy. It won't take long for both of them to be tangled in it.

I probably should go see what they are up to now....It's very quiet. Good luck with the baskets if you decide to try any of them.

See you tomorrow.