More Baskets

I've found some baskets that I hadn't gotten around to posting, and thought you might like to see them (and I have another, huge basket almost finished, but will save it for another post).  This first basket was supposed to have curls of thin ash wood strips, but I wove the basket so tight, I couldn't manage to squeeze a strip into the weave (then again, maybe there's a tip I'm missing, because I'm learning from patterns and books, instead of in a class).  It is already full of my weaving books.

Oops... This long basket was supposed to be a bit deeper, however, I cut the stakes shorter than I should have, and didn't notice until I had woven most of the way up the sides and wished they were longer (you know, re-reading the instructions last, instead of measure twice / cut once).  It's still a cute basket with a Williamsburg handle and will work for small projects, or just to sit on a shelf.   [The peachy colored stakes were dyed with leftover dye in my dye bucket after dyeing reed for a previous project.]

When you order online, you don't always get what you're expecting.  I "thought" I had ordered space-dyed reed in these colors, but what arrived was a bundle of different colored strips in the colorway.  I had been wanting to make a twill market basket with space-dyed reed, and decided it might look ok, if I randomly used the reed that I received.  The stakes were cut from one size larger reed than the weavers, and I'm glad I didn't run out (it was close, as some of the reed was too short or rough to use), and I think I ended up with a decent, usable basket, and of course, I learned another lesson, which was to use the same stake spacing in both directions.  Two of the basket sides had the stakes so close that I didn't have enough space to use reed to lash the rim with, so I modified a waxed linen stitch that I found in one of my basket weaving books.