Pine Needle Basketry is an Opportunity to Live in the Moment

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Doing Pine Needle Basketry is a really great opportunity to slow down and stay in the moment with your own breath. It is a meditation in itself. When you have yourself settled down this way, you don't project your mental state into the future and instead take great care and interest in each stitch. The old saying that a stitch in time saves nine is so true.

 I started work on a Pine Needle Basket today and I think you can see from the very beginnings of this basket that there is a certain relaxed contentment in it.

This is the thing about making Pine Needle Baskets, we learn by our mistakes and what works for us and what doesn't. Being adaptable and creative can be so much more than just doing a stitch and liking how it looks. Everything about the art form from picking the needles up off the ground, washing and drying them, baking them in glycerin or dyeing them has an energy of love which we infuse with every step into the process of each basket. Art is a process and cultivating the resiliency to be in constant awe and creative adaptability goes a long way towards the overall look of any given basket. It is best to just chalk up any set backs as " experience" and move lovingly forward to the next step in the process. Next time you process some needles try something new or wait for a warmer day. Sometimes this is why baskets can take a long time, because we wait for the perfect moment to do things. This doesn't always come easy. I always want to push things through with my mojo but as I grow older I start to see a wonderful rhythm and energy to the ups and downs or trials of making a basket.

I have tasted the hidden honey of the lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus, I am blessed. Let this be my parting word. - Rabindranath Tagore

My Inspiration for Learning Pine Needle Basketry and a Glycerin Bath Recipe to Preserve and Darken the Needles

Pine Needle Basket made by Melissa Abbott
with Glycerin Preserved Needles

MY IMAGINATION IS STIRRED BY GROVES OF PINE TREES, THE LIGHT, THE SMELL, AND THE MAJESTY OF PINES DELIGHTS AND UPLIFTS!

This Pine Needle & Tennerife Mattapoisett Purse created in 1970’s by Helen Gastar became my inspiration to learn Pine Needle Basketry. Helen Gastar's daughter, Geri, was my friend and I visited their home and saw Helen making this basket many years ago. It always stayed with me and I am sure you can see why.

Helen Gastar's Mattapoisett Basket 

I have always loved Pine Trees especially the scent at Christmas Time when Evergreen Trees are brought into the home. There is a certain something, a mysterious wonder the scent conjures up. Several years ago, I went to visit an old friend on Cape Cod. She lives on the edge of a Pine Woods and we walked our dogs amongst the lovely Pine Trees there. We remembered her mother who had made Pine Needle Baskets and she even had inherited a beautiful basket her mother had made and showed it to me. I was mesmorized by it. In fact I had visited her many years before in Mattapoisett, MA when she was making it. The basket was as hard as wood but light as a feather. This is where the intrigue of the Pine Needle Basket started for me and I eventually learned techniques to make my own baskets.

 Depending on where you live, Long Leaf Pine Needles may be growing near your home. This tree is available throughout the southern United States from Virginia to Gulf of Mexico. The botanical name is Pinus Palustris. In other parts of North America there are other versions of a long leaf pine needle. Many people use Tory Pine, Canary Island, and Guatamalan varieties with success. If you are not able to find them locally you can buy them on the internet from basket suppliers, Etsy sellers, and Ebay. When I first made a Pine Needle Basket, I bought a lb. of Tory Needles on Ebay and they worked wonderfully. After my initial trials, I started collecting needles locally and in my travels. 

At first, I just picked up any old pine needle I found on the ground. I would see a copse of trees by a roadside, pull over, and scoop up what I could under the trees. I soon discovered that a lot of these needles had been laying around for a long time, perhaps even years. Not only were they very dirty, they also had mildew, and even bugs. I decided that I only wanted the freshest needles and I started looking in parks and parking lots where the lawn was often mowed under the trees. 

A Bundle of Needles
 picked up individually
off the ground
with discrimination.

I also discovered that needles fell off the trees after wind storms and if had been particularly windy, it was a good time to look for needles. I found a large park with many Long Leaf Pine Trees on the perimeter. I looked for Pine cones on the ground and where there are pine cones, there are usually pine needles. The freshest needles have a nice new look about them. I started looking for these type of needles exclusively and it made a different using this type of discrimination in my selections.

I dry my needles on Newspapers

The Best time to gather needles is in the Fall

You can, though, gather them anytime of year green and allow them to cure outside in the sun for at least two weeks until they turn a golden brown. You can collect boughs and hang them from a line or fence so as not to touch the ground.

The color of the needles can range from a light tan to a deep walnut color.

If you live in the Northern Climates where the pine needles are shorter you can use them with success but you will have to use lots of them.

After you find your Pine Needles, there are a few things you can do to improve and preserve them. You can put them in the sink and pour boiling hot water over them and a squirt of Dawn Dishwashing liquid. This kills any bugs and washes off any dirt of residual grime from the ground or environment.

Wash in Plenty
of Hot Water and Dawn
when you get home

If you want to dye them, you can use RIT Dye at this point too and many interesting colors can be used. 

Another way to preserve them is to give them a Glycerin Bath which renders them very flexible and preserves them well. I know some people add the RITT Dye to the Glycerin Bath too.

Recipe for Glycerin Bake

Ingredients Needed:

1 16 oz. Pure Vegetable Glycerine

2+ cups of water

Roasting Pan 

(Disposable Aluminum Pans work great)

Pour 2 cups glycerin over pine needles then add 2 cups+ of water, enough to cover your bundle of pine needles with liquid. Swish things around by turning the pine needles over a few times with tongs. Place pan in preheated 225 degree oven

Roast pine needles in the oven making sure glycerin and water mixture doesn't deplete, turn and check often, add more water if necessary. Carefully turn needles with tongs after 1 hour and continue in this fashion for 2-3 hours (some people cook them for even longer, it depends on the color you want. Then turn off oven and let sit in oven overnight. After several hours rinse pine needles really well in the sink with plenty of hot freshwater. Do not throw away the glycerin and water mixture as this can be reused many times. The more you use it the darker and richer the color becomes. I just pour the remaining mix in mason jars and refrigerate until next use.

An Aluminum Pan, Tongs, Measuring Cup, Water,
and Glycerin are all you need

Needles Baked in Glycerin and then Washed in Hot water, Drying

Recently Completed Pine Needle Basket by Melissa Abbott without Glycerin Needles

Happy Basket Making,

Melissa Abbott

Merritt Island, FL

February 2014

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Melissa Abbott's Making of the Amethyst Pine Needle Basket : "Soul Retrieval"

Soul Retrieval - Finished March 2014 

You are
the melody
that weaves
its way
through
my soul…

My Basket Making Tray

Washed Florida Long Leaf Pine Needles
drying in the sun after being washed.

I started this basket in January 2014 in Merritt Island FL. I had owned this Amethyst Cabashon for several years and it called to me to make it into a basket. I was imagining a larger basket so I started using a larger than usual bundle .

Added Mariposa Beads

Green Row of Waxed Linen Thread

Adding a row of Amethyst beads

Starting Solid Purple Row

Stating to come up the sides to create the bowl effect

Last Row!!!

Side View

Soul Retrieval was finished in February 2014 on Merritt Island, FL. and SOLD in late March 2014 on Etsy at 

Melissa Abbott Designs

Beautiful Large Pine Needle Basket made on Merritt Island, Florida in Jan-Feb 2014 by Melissa Smith Abbott. The Pine Needles were carefully hand sourced on Merritt Island after a Wind Storm, each needle carefully selected. The center cabochon is Amethyst and the weaving is done with Bees Waxed Irish alternating Green and Plum colored Linen Thread, Amethyst Gemstone Beads, Mariposa Glass Beads, and Apple Green Chrysoprase Beads. The Basket is a reintegration and healing meditation, bringing parts of a soul into focus and wholeness. The Basket while spiritual in nature would also be a beautiful addition to any decor as a table top piece but could also be displayed on the wall or table as Fiber Art! 

Trip to Black Whale Gallery Hyannis, MA and meeting Scrimshaw Artist Nancy Lyons while consigning two of my Pine Needle Baskets

"Saharaha" on left and "Web of Space and Time"
Pine Needle Baskets consigned at The Black Whale Gallery

Nancy Lyons owner of The Black Whale Gallery

www.blackwhalegallery.com
349 B Main St., Hyannis, MA 02601
508-771-8600

My Friend Geri, who lives on Cape Cod and whose Mother was a student of Gladys Ellis the famous Mattapoisett Basket Maker, took me to visit The Black Whale Gallery in Hyannis, Massachusetts recently. The owner Nancy Lyons has been a scrimshaw artist for over 30 years. Her work is stunningly detailed. I was interested in meeting her because of her scrimshaw but also because her aunt was a little known Gloucester photographer in the 1920's named Amy Addison. Amy Addison took wonderful photographs of the Gloucester Schooners and waterfront in both Gloucester and Rockport. Amy Addison was also a printmaker and made beautiful etchings and prints of the waterfront as well. She left her body in 1976 but Nancy Lyons, her niece still carries the energy of her work and has written a book which includes her aunts work. Part of the book was also reproduced recently in Wooden Boat magazine.  

Sailors Valentines in case

Nantucket Baskets and
Ivory Scrimshaw in case

Nancy Lyons and my friend Geri looking at a necklace

The Gallery

Gorgeous Nantucket Baskets

I loved The Black Whale Gallery and meeting Nancy Lyons. There is nothing like travel to get fresh inspiration. Since making my Pine Needle Buddha purse, I want to make more Mattapoisett style Pine Needle purses. The tradition of the Nantucket purses as we know it today may have originally been made in Pine Needles and whale bone before the whalers sailed to Asia and brought back Cane and Rattan to use for basketry.The local Massachusetts native population made baskets from Pine Needles originally and I am of the ilk that if you were to go back in time and "see" what the baskets looked like before whaling trips of the 1850's, they would be Pine Needles. You know back in those days there were no plastic bags and fabric was ultra expensive. A persons basket was their personal receptacle for food, personal items, storage, and even cooking. There are stories that people etched their names in whalebone onto their personal baskets originally so that after the church suppers in Nantucket, everyone would know whose baskets were whose. The baskets were usually round, made of ash and cane and made over a mold of an old spar, mast, or boom from a ship. The nesting baskets were made on The Nantucket Lightships during off hours by the men stationed there to sell to summer tourists on the island beginning in the 1880's. Baskets from the 1800's are quite valuable and collectible. The Lightships were anchored on the shoals off Nantucket during that time functioning as mobile Lighthouses of sorts. It must have been lonely, with hours of idle time. The men filled the hours with making baskets as both a hobby and an art.

 Later in the 1940's and 1950's a Nantucket maker commercialized the Nantucket Purse. His name was Jose Formoso Reyes and he stylized the Nantucket purse with a carved Ivory Whale on the top and a swing handle or leather braided strap. Those baskets were originally known as "Friendship Baskets"  and quickly became the style and rage of visiting summer people and tourists on Nantucket. Hard to believe this but they retailed for $15 then.

My Pine Needle creations feel right at home next to the
Ivory Scrimshaw and Nantucket Baskets

I still imagine the very early local Wampanog tribe making Pine Needle baskets on Nantucket and I do believe there was a tradition of this in Mattapoisett as there was a huge native american population there. We shall never really know because natural fiber and textiles disappear over the years but if you were to squint your eyes, on an anthropological level, it all makes sense. For some reason, this bit of history, while not important to others, inspires me.

The photos above the cases are
Amy Addison Gloucester Photos from 1920's

I love using traditional materials at hand to create useful and creative objects of beauty and function. The whole tradition of the Nantucket Sailors Valentines, Baskets, Scrimshaw, and other Oceanic creative endeavors with a history of using natural materials available is, to me, amazing. When I see Pine Trees growing on the shore, it makes sense to me that this fiber was important.

Amy Addison Gloucester Waterfront Photos

Couple this with great, practically unknown Gloucester waterfront photos in this gallery and I am mesmerized. The Black Whale Gallery is really something special. I felt supported to extend my craft to a creative edge just by going there and seeing all the work of all the basket artists the gallery represents.

More Nantucket Bags and Baskets

So, it makes perfect sense that I consigned my baskets to a place with Nantucket style art, scrimshaw, and other oceanic Massachusetts artists. It was hard for me to leave my baskets someplace. They seem part of me. I picked each pine needle off the grass just as it was freshly fallen and then crafted the baskets stitch by stitch with great love and intention. to me, they are works of art, an expression of a greater whole and a spiritual affinity for the world around me. I have no idea if anyone else will "get" the expression of this work but it feels right and good that I left them at the Black Whale Gallery amongst the old Gloucester photos and Sailors Valentines.

I am going to be working with Nancy Lyons in a collaboration of sorts on my next basket and I will post photos as soon as I get that started. I want to try my hand a Tenneriffe and Ivory Pine Needle Basket Purse in a Mattapoisett Style but with an updated Fiber Arts modern feel. Art for Arts sake, yeah, it is where it is at. There is always a lot of discussion about authenticity in Nantucket basketry. I think the authenticity comes from within and it isn't a historical thing from the past. What gives a basket its energy and light is the makers intentions with form, functionality, and creative expression, no matter when and where it was made. I don't think I could ever try to "exactly copy" a style to sell or pass off as a tradition. I can only envision my own new style and expression in basketry!

Thanks for sharing my trip to Cape Cod with me and my visit to The Black Whale Gallery meeting Nancy Lyons, Amy Addison with my dear friend Geri Gastar. There is more to come....

Kind Regards, Melissa Smith Abbott