Grand champion

 baskets  3 Responses »
Sep 302009
 
Grand Champion at the Puyallup Fair

Grand Champion at the Puyallup Fair

Katherine recently won the Grand Champion ribbon in the professional basket maker division of the home arts competitions at the Puyallup Fair, or officially the Western Washington Fair.  She won the blue ribbon in the wickerwork category and the overall winner. This year the fair ran from September 11-27 and had well over a million visitors. In recent years, entries in the basketry categories had been dropping; so members of the Northwest Basket Weavers Guild made an effort to encourage participation this year. Katherine was fortunate to have Vicky Nickelson transport her basket to and from the fair. In case weavers are interested, the basket was made from Salix purpurea ‘nana’.

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Tidal Twinings 2009

 basketry  2 Responses »
Sep 232009
 
zig zag weave willow shopper

zig zag weave willow shopper

Katherine recently attended Tidal Twinings 2009, the annual Fall basketry retreat of the Columbia Basin Basketry Guild held in Lincoln City, Oregon. She taught two classes: a one day round fruit or bread basket and a two day zig zag weave willow shopper class. She says that the weavers seem to enjoy the classes and completed some nice baskets. What did she bring back for me? Photos to crop, tweak, and upload into a couple of photo albums which you can view by following the links below.

Tidal Twinings 2009 Zig Zag Willow Shopper class
Tidal Twinings 2009 Willow Fruit Basket class
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Skagit eat local week

 Skagit Valley  No Responses »
Sep 132009
 
sweet peppers at the DG farmstand

sweet peppers at the DG farmstand

Skagit Valley “Eat Local Week” is September 14-20. This event is sponsored by the local Slow Food group, and as they say “happens mostly at the end of your fork.” The idea is to encourage people to support the local food economy by visiting farmstands, farmers markets, and local restaurants featuring our valley’s growers and food producers. The week ends with community picnics in five locations.

greenbeans

It’s a good week to have this celebration in our area as the summer and fall harvest seasons start to overlap. We have summer foods like tomatoes and beans along with the autumn harvest of apples and squash. You can always check out what we have at our farm stand on our website. If you’re dining out in our area, we recommend the restaurant we have been selling to for several years – Nell Thorn Restaurant & Pub in nearby La Conner. Check out an earlier post I wrote about them. Their order this week included Sungold tomatoes, cannellini beans, green beans, baby artichokes, eggplant, peppers, sweet corn, zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, chard, pears, Burgundy apples, and herbs.

apples

apples in willow baskets

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October class date added

 basketry  No Responses »
Sep 122009
 
basic round laundry basket

basic round laundry basket

Katherine has decided to add a willow basketmaking class date to our schedule on October 24-25. The waiting list for the Oct. 10-11 class was starting to grow; so she added a repeat of the class two weeks later as an option.  Classes are two days, from 9am to 5pm. Everyone will leave with a finished basket. Class size is limited to 10. Cost is $165 per student which includes materials. There is information and a registration form on our website. These classes are in the Mount Vernon area at the McLean Road Fire Hall near Dunbar Gardens.

gathering basket

gathering basket

Depending on each student’s experience, you can make a round picking or laundry basket of locally grown and English willows. We’ll make a round base using twining, stake up the sides and begin the weave with a sturdy base wale. Students may choose between different side weave options. The laundry basket is larger than the gathering basket, taking more hand strength and more time to weave the sides. Both baskets have the same 5 rod border. The gathering basket is then completed with a cross handle for carrying; the laundry basket will be completed with two roped side handles.

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Baskets on Flickr

 basketry  No Responses »
Sep 062009
 

round table baskets

One of my favorite websites is Flickr.com. I enjoy posting and sharing photos of Katherine’s work and Dunbar Gardens. One of the nice features of Flickr are the group photo pools, and there are a few groups dedicated to basketry. I have posted quite a few photos in the group *Basket. This group invites all basketmakers, collectors and anyone with an interest in baskets and hand woven items to post their basketry related images. This group has a sister group called *Basket World which has an emphasis on Baskets at work around the world – “baskets in use, being worn, carried, burnt, thrown away, loved, stacked, sold, filled, emptied…”. Artist and photographer  Tim Johnson is the administrator of these two groups. Tim’s goal is to make the two pools as vibrant as possible to celebrate our craft.

There are other groups as well that I frequent that are of interest to basketmakers and weavers. Check out Handwoven, Coiled and Twined  Basketry, Traditional American Basketry, and  *String, Cordage, Binding, Bundles, Braiding & Wrapping. So sign up for Flickr and join in the fun!

 Posted by at 2:36 pm  Tagged with: , , ,
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