Buy British Made Baskets

I do a lot of talks, just when I think there cannot be a Women's Rural Institute or local Garden Club that I haven't spoken at another one pops up. I also meet many people and often their baskets, so when the phone rings and I hear 'you did a talk for us last year and you said...about my basket',I go through a brief panic. I did vaguely remember this one, well I seemed to recall it was large but my diagnosis at the time was a bit patchy, however I had said it could be fixed, so fix it I will.
Fellow basket makers will be familiar with this one, imported Asian and East European made baskets that fall apart then come to us for repair. Most cannot be fixed, there is so little material or structure to work on that the only solution would be a new basket. Yet the owner has bought this basket in good faith as a functional container. This particular one was bought in Wiltshire, so the owner assumed it was made locally, Wiltshire conjures up an image of rural makers continuing age long crafts.
The handle liner consisted of two quite sturdy rods but they were only fixed into the border at a depth of an inch, result, a very wobbly handle. In many ways it was a heavy weaver pushed into the randing and taken around the liner which was taking the weight of the basket and its contents. New liner, a few rope handle weavers, I could not cover the whole handle as there was nowhere to place more handle weavers, and that was about as much as I could do. My concern is the new handle is stronger than the rest of the basket.
So to all of you out there thinking of buying a basket, please, please, please buy British and check it was made by a British maker. If you are not sure contact the Basketmakers' Association, www.basketassoc.org email:honsec@basketassoc.org or if you are in my neck of the woods, www.scottishbasketmakerscircle.org email:lochdoon@googlemail.com.

Dundee Flower and Food Festival

This year I had the opportunity to attend the Saturday and Sunday of the Dundee Flower and Food Festival on behalf of the Scottish Basketmakers' Circle. Fellow makers Catherine Davies and Pascal Carr did all the organising the rest of us Jane Wilkinson, Georgia Crook and myself just turned up. Oh and the 'Hairy Bikers' were there too but I don't think they were making baskets.
A great weekend, plenty of space and lots of folk to chat to, really enjoyed the evening with members of the Galgael. The Galgael are a charity based in Glasgow whose core activity is traditional boatbuilding and helping those primarily you have suffered with addiction problems. A great bunch of people and incredibly skilled wood workers, Fiona MacDougall has done a lot of basket making for them particularly in making baskets to fit into odd spaces in their boats.www.galgael.org
I did not see much of the Festival, too busy demonstrating plant supports and puting the world of basket making to rights with Catherine and Pascal.

It is obvious really

Seeing the wood for the trees and all that. I suppose doing something easily and effectively is the aim with most tasks. So when something goes repeatedly wrong and seems hard work there must be something I'm missing.
I have just been finishing a small creel for a friend who needs it for gathering kindling for the fire. It is the type with a curved rather than flat base. I have made these before but usually find it hard work fixing the the uprights into a curve for the base. The curve is okay but often they will kink as they are inserted into the weave. Having struggled away with this it finally struck me to kink the end of the rod to be inserted, then knock it in with the rapping iron. Obvious really and I am sure everyone else does this but it is news to me.
I also started twisting the willow earlier at the top knot stage rather than further on in the final randing. Found some photos in the Scottish Basketmakers' Circle archive of this kind of work. Conserving the history of our crafts is important.