Shaping Coiled Baskets: 6

Thanks to Von and to Waterrose, who commented on my last blogpost. Have you seen Rose's etsy shop? She makes really gorgeous, delicate looking embroidered wearables and home decor items, including embroidered cuff kits so you can try it yourself! Great idea, worth checking out!

In my opinion, the hardest not-round basket is the square. OMG, (that is "oh my gosh," for those of you who are NOT fluent in computer –ese, or whatever you call that stuff) I cannot even begin to describe the challenges to keeping FOUR corners square…FOUR sides even! But Judy Mallow did it. I know, because I OWN a basket where she did. Here it is.


I have not seen another one like it, perhaps it was a challenge even for her! Not only did she make it square, she carried the corners up over the side and made a little rim. Amazing. Beautiful. (Care to comment, Judy?)

Again, the easiest way to do this is to insert something at four places in your basket. The trick after that is to keep your coil consistent and MAKE A SHARP CORNER each time you go around it. I am not even going to start on going up the sides. This is really a challenge, and I would not want to tackle making a symmetrical square basket, even with 12 years of coiling under my belt. Way to go, Judy! Check out more of Judy's fabulous baskets at PrimPines.com . As this blog entry is posted, she has another triangle basket and a star-shaped bsaket in her gallery.

I would love to hear your thoughts on making square baskets. Please leave a comment (click #comments just below this post to go to the comment page.) ON to the next post.
pamela