the making of a basket

nantucket lightship baskets are a true american craft. the nantucket basket is woven on a wood mold, has a wood base, and a rim. they can have wood or cane staves (uprights), and the rim can be made of wood or reed.

the basket i made this summer is a 10" tabletop basket. the mold is shallow, and curved to the top of the mold.

first i drew a circle the size of the base onto curly maple and cut it out on the band saw.

next i drilled the middle hole out on the drill press. drilling a little from both sides to prevent chipping out.

then onto the lathe to round over one edge (the edge on the inside of the basket). and make the slot that the staves fit into.

the base gets sanded with the random orbital sander, hand sanding the rounded edge til the wood gleams. the base gets a coat of oil finish as a sealer.

this isn't mine, but you get the picture ;-)

here is the stave material, cane.

and cut into 8" pieces.

i tapered both sides on the belt sander, to match the curve on the mold.

stick the staves in the base's slot, and weave away. first weaver was 1.5mm cane, the rest of the basket was woven with 1.75.

here's the basket woven up and leveled. the inner rim is inside the basket, and the outer rim is next to it with the epoxy glue that glues the rim ends together.

the rim ends are scarfed, the the taper is perfected on the disc sander and the drum sander.

the ideal is to make the scarf joint as invisible as possible.

the rims are on,

and the top of the staves are cut flush with the rim.

every other stave gets dotted in the middle of the rim, a hole is drilled with a dremel drill, and a brass escutcheon pin is hammered in the hole.

finally the basket is lashed! this one has double lashing, so the lashing looks crisscrossed.

fini!

today i'll get some salad bowl finish, this baby is going to be my big popcorn bowl :-)

rebecca at brant point.

last week was the nantucket film festival. it was really really cold. this is the friday night free movie at children's beach. i had to have this photo of the only 5 nuts waiting to see the movie (me included).

the film was worth the cold. after the movie there was a q&a with the director raul de la fuente, fascinating!

i also saw the good night, flakes, the go-getter, and canvas. all were good, but canvas was beyond excellent.

rebecca saw more movies as a volunteer, and she got the coveted free volunteer hoodie!

last lunch with bobby and karol at something natural, biggest sandwiches in the world, and the best carrot cake :-)

goodbye nantucket!