What I'm Weaving Wednesday: Thanksgiving Cornucopia and Christmas Wreaths

With Thanksgiving just a hair over two weeks away, I wanted to get in the theme of the Holiday and decided to make myself a Cornucopia!

I had made one for a customer many years ago, and as is the case with so many of the baskets I weave, I just never got around to making one for myself.

I found the pattern at Basketmakers.org and you can find it free here.

It's very simple to make, and weaves up relatively quickly using only two different sizes of round reed.

It's fairly large in size (perfect for a Thanksgiving Table!), but I think you could easily make one smaller just by using thinner round reed.

I opted to make mine plain, but it would be beautiful 

with some 1/4" flat dyed fall colors woven in as well....or use a combination of natural and smoked reed.

I filled mine with a variety of silk flowers I already had laying around, and am really happy with the result.

I also have a pattern book with instructions to make a beautiful braided wreath out of round reed (Romancing the Reed, by Sharon Wright).

I had tried this wreath last year and got so confused and frustrated, I gave up.

I tried it again, and again got frustrated, but this time I had an idea for how to make it a bit easier, and it worked!

The technique used is a five strand braid, which is really pretty easy. 

The difficulty comes when you need to weave the ends back into the wreath at the starting point.  

Wow...talk about confusing! 

But I managed, and even though I'm not sure I did it quite right, it won't matter if I cover that part with a bow!

The possibilities for embellishment are as endless as your imagination, but I wouldn't want to cover too much of this wreath because the braiding is so pretty!

The next wreath is one I came up with myself.  It was so easy to do it is ridiculous!

I have a bunch of metal hoops that were left from my adventures in weaving lampshades...I had no use for the bottom ring, and they were cut off, but I saved them anyway.

All I did was wrap long lengths of round reed (I used three lengths of #4 RR together) around the hoop on a diagonal, then wrapped back in the opposite direction a few times, then back again the other way a few times....etc.,  until I was happy with the thickness.

The end result looks much more complicated than it really is!

How about that???

The little ornaments hanging on the wreath are really wine glass charms that I found at a dollar store many years ago.

I love how the old, rejected pearl necklace looks draped around the top!

(Sometimes it pays to save your old junk!)

Well, I hope I've inspired you to try creating your own wreaths, and if you don't already have a cornucopia, give it a try and see just how easy it is to weave!

What I'm Weaving Wednesday: Fabric Egg Basket

Normally at 8:00 in the morning I would be at our family farm doing barn work (a.k.a. feeding the animals), but it's soooooo cold, and the frost was so thick that it almost looks like it snowed!  November is definitely making itself known!

So I'm putting off  bundling up and venturing outside for a while to share what I've been up to with weaving.

I always have liked the idea of combining different media to create unique baskets, so this time I tried weaving an egg basket with a combination of reed and fabric.  

I had some pretty floral fabric laying around, that used to be curtains.  You can mix and match fabrics to your liking!

I prepared the frame of the basket as usual with two hoops, connecting them together with a Gods-eye variation, and using #6 round reed for the ribs.

Preparing the fabric strips took a good bit of time to do, although it was easy.

Cut fabric strips that are about 3" wide and about a yard long.  If they are too long, the weaving gets hard, and if they are too short, you have to stop and sew ends together that much more often.

Take the fabric strips and press each side to the center, then fold in half and press again.  This gives you a nice finished edge.  There is no need to sew the strips along the edge, but you certainly could if you wanted to!

To begin weaving, simply tuck one of the ends of the fabric into the lashing/God's-eye.

As your fabric weaver runs out, you'll need to stop and stitch a new piece to the old one with a few basting stitches using a needle and matching thread.  Just continue doing this, weaving as you normally would until the ribs are all filled in.

Add secondary ribs as needed!

I pushed my fabric weavers together a bit (but not TOO much) and that gave the basket a cool , kind of "puckered" affect.

What do you think?

I am happy with how it turned out, and in some ways, weaving with the fabric strips was a bit easier than using reed weavers, with the added bonus that you don't have to soak them!

But as I said, prep time was significantly longer.

Still, it was fun to do and it's always good to step out of the usual basket-weaving routine and do something different!  I hope you'll give it a try, too!