Nantucket Basket Purse with Oak Staves and Base

I finally finished the basket in February 2015 in Merritt Island, FL.

This is 8" Nantucket Basket Purse made with Oak Staves, Bases, and Handle. It is as solid as a rock! I had never attempted a basket purse with hardwood only with cane. I spent months fiddling around with this, and the basket isn't perfect, in so many ways, but it is strong and resilient. I have been joking with people that it will be around much longer than you and I. I am not sure I would do another Oak Purse or not, because there is so little "give", but if I do, I have come up against all the pitfalls of working with this medium in this piece so I am sure my next one would be better. Most challenging basket I have ever made and this includes all my Pine Needle Baskets. I haven't yet decided where I will put a bone scallop shell on the top or do a small scrimshaw. Honestly, the bag has so many errors that I may keep it as an example of " what not to do" for the future and remember how far I have come in my Nantucket Basket Journey!

This winter I am making a 8" Nantucket Basket Purse with Oak Base and Staves. I plan on some really great Scrimshaw for the project too!

This is the very start of the Basket:

getting going!

Almost to the end of weaving the basket base:

More to come as the process develops!!..... Meanwhile I am posting a few pics of some of my Nantucket Basket Molds:

The molds are used to make the shape of the basket. Piece of wood or rattan called Staves are the ribs of the basket. I have placed them into a base ( made of oak) which is slotted. 

The Nantucket Baskets were originally woven on molds made out of old masts and booms off wrecked ships. Oak is the material these particular staves are made from but people use all kinds of woods for bases and staves. 

Many people use Rattan for staves too. I am weaving with Rattan or Cane. 

Traditionally on Nantucket (where I learned this style of basket making from a teacher named Peter Finch) baskets may have been made from other materials other than rattan. Since it is thought that some basket making skills may have been inherited from the Local Wampanoag Indians, they may have even used Pine Needles. There is a bit of a historical connection with the shakers and some early families on the Island and you can see that influence. I have many Molds. I also do a little scrimshaw and use ivory and bone findings (antique of course).

The whalers brought the rattan and cane home to Nantucket in the 1800's from Asia and that's when they started weaving with it. Later many men who were stationed on Light Ships which were ships anchored in shoal water off the island like floating lighthouses they made baskets to sell on the island in the late 1800's. Later the Nantucket purse was popularized in the 1940's by a talented basket maker on the island named Jose Reyes.

There is a wonderful video of Jose Reyes on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/slMhy2obnK0

A Photo f me weaving this basket - Feb 2015

Some of the stages

Gluing the lid

This was a real leap of crazy faith to do this basket without much instruction or a mentor to help me with hardwood baskets. I have some supplies to make a cherry basket purse next with cherry staves and I am hoping I do a better job with that!

Happy Weaving!!

Melissa Smith Abbott

Pine Needle Basketry is an Opportunity to Live in the Moment

I

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

Mystic Journey Pine Needle Basket

"Mystic Journey Pine Needle Basket"
The Mystic Journey is the journey of the soul.
As the Poet Wordsworth once wrote:
Our birth is but a sleeping and a forgetting
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere it's setting
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
can in a moment travel thither

The very beginnings of the Mystic Journey.
 Paua Shell cabochon glued to a piece of leather.
 

1st row going on second row.
I make my stitches tight and close.

Putting on the 1st row of 6 mm lapis beads

Lapis bead row almost complete

1st row of solid teal wrapping

A Row of Czech glass teal colored
 beads between rows.

Added a row of larger 10mm Lapis Beads
 and then another solid teal row is begun

Solid Teal row is completed and starting a row of cobalt
 colored czech glass beads between rows.

The cobalt beads I used were silver lined.
Here is a close up of we stringing
them in between rows.

Another close up.
You can really see the beauty of the Lapis Beads.

Teal colored glass Czech beads
used between rows.

The light looks beautiful
through the Teal Beads

This is where I am adding a row of 8mm Lapis beads
and starting to come up the sides of the basket.

The sides of the Basket are being formed
and I added another solid teal row to end the whole thing.

close up of center

The Back of the Basket.

Side View of Finished Basket
Note my bee hives in the background!

Angled View

Alternate View of Finished Basket

Finished View of "Mystic Journey"
This basket is 10"x 10" by 3" high.
It was made between Oct 15 - Nov 13, 2014
in East Gloucester, MA by Melissa Smith Abbott

Joseph Campbell once said, 

" Where we had thought to travel

outward, we shall come to the center of our 

own existence 

 where 

we thought we were alone, 

we shall be with all the world." This 

is

 in fact, the crux of the Mystic Journey 

we all take on this path 

                                 called life.

Forest Sky Bowl - completed Oct 2014 Gloucester, MA

"Forest Sky Bowl" 

Begun in July 2014 in Mirror Lake N.H. and finished October 2014 in Gloucester, MA using a green turquoise cabashon with malachite, yellow jade, copper beads, carnelian and glass beads with Crawfords Irish Linen thread waxed with beeswax Needles were sourced on Merritt Island, Fl and preserved in a glycerin bath.

The Start

note: copper spacer beads in plastic package

Close up of start on
Dyed Green Turquoise Cabashon - I love the flecks of gold in it!

Close Up of Copper Spacer Beads used

Working at this at Mirror Lake, N.H. and putting on a row of green glass beads 

Pine Needle Basket "Amber Rose" finished July 2014

Pine Needle Basket created by Melissa Abbott during the Spring and Summer of 2014. Basket was begun in Merritt Island, FL, sourced with local Pine Needles 

gathered there after a wind storm. 

The Very Beginning - Jasper Caboshon

Adding some Beads
 Amber, Red Glass Mariposa, and Carnelian

Tools of the Trade

Work continued on the basket after Melissa 

returned to Gloucester, MA

The Basket starts to create a bowl

The Basket was finished during July 2014 in Gloucester, MA. The basket's needles were treated with a baked Glycerin bath for preservation which darkened them slightly. Crawford's Irish Linen Beeswaxed Thread was used with a Jasper Center, Amber colored beads, Red Glass Mariposa beads, and 

Semi Prescious Carnelian Stone Beads.

Nearing the End

Working on it at Niles Beach in Gloucester, MA

Basket was finished July 17, 2014 in Gloucester, MA