Basket Making Can Be Therapeutic

Basket making has proved to be therapeutic and therapy for stress relief. Baskets are useful and decorative. People love to have baskets at home because they are handy to store things like fruit and magazines, they make beautiful gift hampers, and they add beauty to the decor. Besides, you can let your creativity take wings and create baskets of different shapes and sizes.

A variety of material can be used to make baskets as long as the materials are flexible. Most craft stores offer a supply of machine made reeds and splints. You can make baskets with cattail leaves or stalks, corn husks, honeysuckle vines, pine needles, and daffodil leaves. You can gather them and hang them to dry. Before using any of these materials, you will need to soak them in lukewarm water for five minutes. Then, wrap them in a damp towel as you are working so they don't dry out or over soak.

To make a basket from a vine, for instance, you will need about ten ' long pieces and around fifteen ' long pieces of vine. You should choose the thickest pieces to make the frame. The first step of basket making is to form a square by laying three ' spokes on top of bottom spokes. Then, take a piece of the long thin vine, called a weaver, and fold it in such a manner that one end is shorter than the other, so that you can loop it over top spokes and then weave it over and under bottom spokes.

Weaving is the next step. The involves weaving it over three spokes, under the next three, over the next three, and so on. You have to do this at least three times before you can begin weaving it through the spokes individually. Gradually, you will go on adding more spokes by inserting each one along the side of a spoke in between a previous weave. Interestingly, as you add and weave, you will start having more space between the spokes. At this point you can cut new spokes and insert them to fill these spaces and start weaving them into a pattern.

Once you've made the bottom " wide, it's important to dampen the spokes until they are flexible enough to be turned upward, and continue weaving as you make your sides.

The final step involves finishing off the top edge of the basket. For this you need to bend the spokes over and weave them amongst themselves one at a time. For example, take one spoke, bend it to the right and weave it over the one next to it, then under the next one, then over the next, and continue in the same manner. When that spoke has woven itself as far as it can, do this with the next one, and then continue until they have all been secured down. If you spot any untidy ends sticking out, snip them off neatly.

Making baskets is an art. The basic technique of basket making has been around for generations. It reveals a marvelous process of hard work, beauty, and culture.