Phase 02 — Stone, bone, wood and fibre toolkit / About year 1
02.17
Baskets
coiled and woven, for carrying and storing
AWhat it needs
Needs 4 other products in all, 1 of them directly.
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- 02.17 BasketsMaking Year 1 needs 4 products
- 02.03 Stone knives, scrapers and engraving pointsMaking Year 1 needs 3 products
- 02.01 Knapping kitMaking Year 1 needs 2 products
- 01.02 HammerstoneMaking Year 1 raw materials only
- 01.03 Sharp stone flakeMaking Year 1 needs 1 product
Open a box to see what it needs. A dashed box is a product already drawn in full: click it to jump there. In the org chart, drag to move around.
BWhy
Everything gathered has to be carried and stored: shellfish, roots, clay, stones, tinder, seed. A basket is a container made from plants that grow back every year, light, strong, and easy to mend. Before pottery, it is how a camp holds anything.
CYou need
- Long, thin, flexible rods: willow, hazel or dogwood shoots of one year's growth, as thick as a grass stem to a finger, cut with a knife flake (02.03)
- Or bundles of long grass, rushes or split cane
- Water to soak them in
DSteps
- Cut the rods, sort them by thickness, and let them dry for a few days. Soak them for an hour before use. Rods woven green shrink as they dry and the basket goes loose.
- Base: take six stout rods a forearm long. Split three of them through the middle and push the other three through the splits, to make a cross.
- Take two thin rods and weave them round the cross together, one going in front of each arm and the other behind, crossing over between arms. Go round twice.
- Now spread the twelve ends apart like the spokes of a wheel and keep weaving the pair round, between every spoke, until the base is two hand-spans across.
- Sides: sharpen the thick ends of twenty-four long rods and push one in beside each spoke, one on each side. Trim off the old spoke ends. Kink each new rod at the edge of the base and bend it upward. Tie the tops loosely together to hold them.
- Weave the sides with single rods, in front of one upright and behind the next. Start each new rod where the last ran out, thick end to thick end. Press each row down firmly on the one below.
- At the height wanted, finish the rim: bend each upright down behind the next two and out to the front, one after another, all the way round. Trim the ends.
- Handle: sharpen both ends of a thick rod and push them deep into the weave on opposite sides. Wrap it with thin rods.
- Grass basket: twist a rope of grass as thick as a finger, coil it flat like a snail, and stitch each turn to the last with a split rush pushed through a hole made with a pointed stick.
- For carrying on the back, make it deeper than it is wide and add two straps.
EIt worked if
- Filled with wet clay or stones and lifted by the handle, nothing shifts or pulls out.
- It stands without rocking.
FWhat goes wrong
- The base buckles into a dome. The weaving was pulled too tight between the spokes. Keep it flat on the knee as you go.
- Rods snap at the bend. Too dry, or two years old. Soak longer and use one-year shoots.
- The sides lean outward. The uprights were not tied at the top while weaving.
- The basket loosens after a week. It was woven green. Dry the rods first, then soak.
GIn the story
Imani's hands have made baskets since she was six, and she weaves one while walking, talking and keeping an eye on the children of a camp that has none yet. Tane asks her for one long and narrow, with a mouth like a funnel, and will not say why. It is the first fish trap, and it works.
HFigures
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