Natural Baskets: Create Over 20 Unique Baskets with Materials Gathered in Gardens, Fields, and Woods

Offers step-by-step instructions for weaving baskets with equisetum, willow, dogwood, pine needles, cattails, bulrushes, cornhusks, and honeysuckle vines

In the ancient tradition of using indigenous materials to create baskets of beauty and practicality, seven contemporary basketmakers share their designs and techniques for making over twenty unique baskets from materials collected along roadsides and fields, in woods and your own garden. Natural Baskets features baskets and garden ornaments of barks such as birch and red pine; grasses and leaves such as cattails, cornhusks, yucca, iris, and pine needles; vines such as red-twig dogwood, willow, and honeysuckle; and horsehair. Basketry techniques include plaiting, twining, and coiling, as well as free-form styles and miniatures. The authors are well-respected, skilled basketmakers and talented teachers. Each describes the evolution of her own style, as well as how to find and prepare the wild and garden materials she uses. The step-by-step instructions are heavily illustrated; many projects are suitable for novice basketmakers.

The authors and basketmakers are:
Nanct Basket (South Carolina)
Maryanne Gillooly, editor (Massachusetts)
Gerrie Kennedy (Massachusetts)
Diana Macomber (Virginia)
Doris Messick (Maryland)
Cass Schorsch (Michigan)
Sandy Whalen (Michigan)