Both Joni and I enjoy using reclaimed materials to make things like baskets, basket parts or furniture. I have made basket bases, rims and lids from reclaimed cedar wallboards (from a family home), boards sawn from a cherry tree (that a family's children grew up playing in), etc. Joni has rummaged around in cut-off bins to find just the right piece of wood for a project. You never know when you will find just the right board full of knotholes for your new purse! It is very gratifying to turn something destined for firewood or the rubbish heap into something beautiful. Each piece of wood (probably) has a purpose, you just have to find it. The same goes for baskets suffering from neglect or abuse. Several years ago, Joni made annual repairs to a parrot's basket. Yes, a parrot. The parrot loved her basket to pieces, and the lady loved her parrot. So, there you go. While she seldom has time for repair work anymore, if the right (or odd aspect of a) project comes along, it may strike her fancy.
Well over a year ago, one such project appeared. Joey Cargill called Joni and asked her to consider a white oak basket repair project. He said there had been a "cotton basket" down by a stream in a gully on his family's land. Joey was by then the last person alive to remember that it had even existed, or where it was. The rest of his family was none-to optimistic that the basket could be repaired.
The basket's history was also a little sketchy: It had either been made on the family farm in North Carolina almost 100 years ago, or had possibly been moved from Cade's Cove (in what is now the Great Smokey Mountains National Park) when the family moved to Rutherford County, NC. Joni, somewhat reluctantly, accepted the challenge, but the historical aspect appealed to her. She was also able to secure authentic white oak basket weavers cut to order by Billy Owens in Missouri. I will admit, when I first saw the decrepid old basket (collapsed, the bottom rotted out, dried & cracked oak, sun-bleached & weathered, and spread over a large plastic tub to help retrain its shape) I too thought it was a total loss. The fact that anything at all remained of the basket spoke to the durability of white oak weaving materials. But Joni replied with her oft-spoken adage that any basket that was made by hand, can be fixed. She often regretted that reply!
As I said, it took Joni almost a year and a half to think about how to begin the restoration, to gather the materials and to find the time to repair the basket. Finally, a couple of days before we went on vacation last week, she gave the basket back to Joey. I believe he was pretty pleased to have this piece of his family's history reconstructed to its former glory.
Just two other things to mention this week:
1. I would ask everyone to please send out good wishes for the sanity of Eric & Lynne Taylor and their dogs Chance & Jackson, as Joni and her merry band of basket weavers has descended upon their studio this week.
2. I also wanted to brag about our grandchildren and their latest Nantucket weavings. Both Kamaya-Dee and Christiana (Aaron's oldest daughter) made Maggie Silva's Angel Baskets this past week on vacation. This was Christiana's first and Kamaya's third basket. Joni and Kamaya also each started weaving Nantucket Bike Baskets while on vacation.
That's all for now. Take Care! David
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