Basket 4: Blackberry Cane, Red Osier Dogwood, Wild Grape, Hazel, Lilac

Cross-posted at The Wildwood Path

This was the first basket that I made after defining my final project for the Wildwood Path. Accordingly, I took a lot of photos and made a lot of notes.

I have to be honest—I was actually looking for red osier dogwood, and I wasn't finding any. The long, red, bountiful blackberry canes caught my eye from across the field, and I had to wonder whether they could possibly be used for baskets. I settled down with Google and found enough to offer encouragement, although a dearth of details and documentation of process. Most people talked about splitting the cane and using it as stitching material for coil baskets, bee skeps in particular. Perhaps I'll try a coil basket in the fall, when dry grasses are more accessible.

In a stroke of luck, one website happened to mention that the French word for bramble is rance, which led me down a rabbit hole of French websites about vannerie sauvage, which translates to something like "wild basketry"—sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. After falling in love with one website in particular, I felt confident that I could turn brambles into ribbons, and that I could use those ribbons as weavers in a tistalh-style basket. My notes after my first bramble harvest:

Three types of berry canes: long and whippy, thick and sturdy, and wicked prickly. The long and whippy ones seem like they must be first year’s growth. They have a fresh, bright color to them, and a pale bloominess that rubs off. I found several that were layering (reaching down to the ground and rooting). The thick and sturdy ones have a darker color, feel more woody and less flexible. They stand straight up, about 7 feet tall. Second year’s growth? The wicked prickly ones are also often thick, but there are a few more slender specimens that I brought in. Is it a different species?

The thorns. First step was definitely to remove the thorns. On the sturdier (older?) canes, the thorns were concentrated on the five ridges running the length of the cane. The long and whippy canes were more round in cross section.

I used a nail to put a hole in a mason jar lid, and slid this over one of the long and whippy canes. The long and whippy canes were pretty round in cross-section; they hadn't really developed the five ridges that characterized the other canes. This meant that not only did the jar lid easily remove the thorns, it also was effective at stripping off all of the red bark.

I split one of the long whippy ones into quarters. It was challenging. Hard to get a long stretch without breaking. Next I split a thick sturdy one, which surprised me by splitting more easily. Pith came off more easily, too.

The wicked prickly canes had similar properties to the thick and study ones, but were way more painful to work with, so I quickly decided to focus on the thick and sturdies. With their prominent ridges, the scraping process resulted in red and green stripes that I found kind of attractive. I did experiment with more thorough scraping to remove all of the red bark, but this resulted in weak ribbons because the cambium had been worn so thin at the ridges.

When harvesting my second batch of canes, I found that even though less than one week had passed, the buds were significantly more prominent. Looks like the leaves will be emerging soon. The buds spiral around the cane in an interesting way. If we numbered the ridges as labeled in the photo to the left, then the buds, starting from the base of the cane, appear on the ridges as follows: 1, 4, 2, 5, 3, etc. You know, like the pattern in which you tighten lug nuts after changing a tire.

The five ridges remind me of some of the blackberry's cousins: the five seeds of an apple, the five petals of a rosa rugosa.

After the scraping, I split each cane in half by twisting my knife back and forth down the length of it. I then split the halves again, and scraped out the spongy pith with the flat part of my knife.

I made the handle and rim of grape vines and red osier dogwood (having finally found some on my land). I soaked the grape vines in my bathtub, refilling it a few times with hot water. I find the process of removing the layers of bark from grape vines to be really satisfying, like peeling a sunburn.

I used yarn to compress the rim into an oval small enough to fit through the handle. I didn't want the pressure of the rim to take the handle out of round (lessons learned from my first, football shaped basket!). There's something that I should have done at this stage, and I'll know to pay attention next time I make this style of basket. When determining the placement of the handle, I made sure the ends of the vines ended up at the bottom, where they would be hidden by the weavers. But I didn't think about how the lumpiness of the bottom of the handle would affect my basket's ability to sit flat. My finished basket leans forward as if generously offering its contents. There are worse things in life.

For the god's eyes, I used ribbons from which I had completely removed the red bark. I thought this would create a nice big of contrast with the rest of the basket. No knot-tying with these ribbons, unlike with the basswood cordage and yarn that I used on my first basket. Luckily, my favorite French website had lots of detailed instructions on how to handle beginnings and ends of the ribbons.

3/5/17 I’ve started the god’s eyes. It’s super fun to do this with a ribbon-type material. And the strips are very resilient, even when bent double. I’m excited about this basket!

The hazel bushes that are growing in my yard don't much resemble the vigorous specimens that seem to be used for basketry in Europe and the UK. I found many videos on splitting hazel, and everyone seemed to be starting with long, straight growth at least an inch in diameter, and as tall as a person. I don't have anything like that. Maybe my hazel is just young. But I did want to include some hazel in my basket, so I went out and selected the four longest, straightest shoots that I could find. I also cut four lilac shoots, as backup.

Hazel is the darker wood, on the left, and lilac is on the right

3/6/17 I just split my first lilac! It was fun! I’m not sure if it will be easy to bend for ribs (I’ll try soaking it), but I can split! I think I’d say it’s easier than the canes. The knife is needed only at the start. The inside of the lilac is moist and green with a spongy pith center. At the end of the whip, it seems like the bark wants to pull away, and it’s green underneath. But I think I’ll leave the bark on.

Changed my mind! Stripping the bark is hella fun. The outer bark reveals a bright avocado green layer, which reveals a pale green layer. Under the pale green is a yet paler shade, and then white, but I leave the palest green in place, as it doesn’t peel as easily.

Now doing the hazel. I saw a youtube video that said it splits easier a few days after harvesting, but I couldn’t wait. I started the split on all four whips, and then peeled one before splitting it. The bark seemed to want to come off, but didn’t peel off in long strips the way the lilac did, so I used the back of the knife to scrape it, which worked very well. It split nicely, no easier or more difficult than the lilac. The lengths of hazel are much longer than the lilac though. The band of pith is narrower in the hazel.

This process is messy.

I'm winging it now--my trusty French website doesn't tell me about shaping the ribs. I decide to soak them and then allow them to dry in the approximate shape that I need for the basket. Instead of building a custom jig, I looked around for a make-do option, and settled on my kindling rack. This worked okay, although it made the ribs a bit narrower than they needed to be, resulting in a loose fit when inserted into the basket. A slightly wider arc would have been preferable. My ribs also did not make really nice fair curves. I'm thinking this is due at least in part to a lack of uniformity in the thickness of each piece of wood. The splitting process was really fun, and I think went pretty well for my first time, but there are some spots where the whips got thinner or thicker as I struggled to bring the split back to center. These irregularities make the wood more or less willing to bend, in places.

I used all hazel for my first set of six ribs. With the loose fit, it was difficult to keep them positioned exactly where I wanted them, so I held them in place with yarn. You can see from this photo that the basket leans from side to side. I was able to correct this by adjusting the placement of the ribs (unfortunately, not much to be done about the front-to-back listing).

Once the weaving began, I was completely in love with this basket. All of my free time, and some of my sleep time, was given over to it. After several inches of weaving, I decided to insert the second set of ribs. I didn't have enough hazel left, so some of these ribs are lilac.

Progress came quickly at this point. I worked on the basket at a Northwood skills jam, but in the pleasantly dim lighting I didn't realize I had inserted a ribbon upside down and had then woven several inches with the ribbon wrapping "wrong side" out over the rim. It didn't look good, and I decided to undo my work and do it right.

Wanting to preserve the stripes on the ribbons, I tried different methods of soaking. Boiling water dulled the color and left a pale brown. Cold water was ineffective; the ribbons didn't bend well. Hot tap water seemed to be the best compromise.

After I finished the basket, I let it sit for a few days, and found that the ribbons had loosened up as they dried. So I squeezed them together as tightly as I could, and inserted a few more weavers down the center. Et voila! My wild basket.