A few months back the teacher of the basket-making course I did at the start of the year posted on Facebook that she was clearing her excess accumulation of weaving materials, so I got in contact to arrange to collect some. What I took made barely a dint in her collection, but I kept in mind that I have only a small space in the garage to store it. I’m glad I did. They take up a fair bit of space there.

I also discovered a few months back that there are a couple of willow trees down by the nearby creek, so when we go walking down there I grab a couple of the whiplike slim branches, coil them up and take them home. I’ve also bought some old rope and put aside a branch that could make a nice handle.

But I haven’t done any basket weaving since I used up the cordyline from the workshop. Having to pre-soak the materials is part of the problem. I know I can only work for half an hour a day, so I can only soak a bit at a time, and it turns out I’m not so good at that sort of pre-planning. The other is that some of the baskets I want to try, like a tension basket, need firmer materials than leaves for the basic framework, and as time goes by I’m forgetting why I got excited about this craft in the first place.

Mosaic making had kind of taken over, too. I’m much more excited about it, and have several projects in various stages. Getting information about it is much easier, and I have two friends and a couple of women at my art classes who also do it.

So now I have a bunch of basket weaving materials I suspect I may not use. Oh well. You’ve got to give these things a try, right?