Bush baskets for Easter for the children to make
Gather your materials, from your garden including long strappy plants,
thin bendy branches. Good ones are:
Couch and kikuyu
grass
grasses
Vines (grape,
pumpkin)
Casuarina
branches
Peppermint
branches
You will also need a blunt needle to stitch
(plastic ones are good).
Thread to stitch the basket. This thread
could be wool, cotton, fabric strips, raffia, strips of strappy grasses (if
plyable enough).
Tread a needle with a length of thread (no
longer than you elbow).
Select plant material and coil into a tight
ring at one end. Stitch randomly with your needle down and up to hold the coil
together.
Bend the branch/grass around the edge of
the coil and stitch using an overhand stitch so that the stitch enters the
already stitched coil below and holds the new coil above it.
Continue stitching , turning and adding
material until your basket is the size you want. If you run our of thread. Pull
the needle out. Add the thread attached to you basket to the coil you are
stitching.
Thread you needed with new thread and continue stitching from where
you left off. This technique will sew the tread ends into your basket making it
secure.
You are done when your basket is the size you want. A handle can also be added.
