Basket making class

I love it when I can keep a blog theme. QUILTS.

This barn quilt was at Loose Creek, Missouri on my way to basket making class. So for right now, forget the quilt theme. We are moving on to baskets now.

This is from the top of the hill at Joe and Alice's log cabin. It was here that I met up with my cousin, Donna. She had invited me to take a basket class with her.

Here instructor Joe shows us the next step. All the wood was felled by Joe. He makes all the strips. He and his wife Alice teach the course.

Here I am keeping toasty warm in front of the wood stove. We would later use this stove to dry our baskets before adding the handle and top rims.

It was inside this log cabin that the class was held.

We take a break while our baskets dry and Alice takes us to the basement. There she shows us how to throw a pot.

We then go upstairs to see Joe's beautiful wood carvings.

He loves to make his signature hunting dogs.

He carves the most beautiful animals, all from Missouri wood he has harvested. It might be ash, cedar, hackberry, hickory, walnut, or white oak.

Just beautiful! Such talent these two people have.

Here is the blacksmith's door knocker. You see Joe and I worked together for almost 20 years. At our Christmas auctions Joe would bring baskets and I would bring items the Blacksmith had made. It seems almost every year we bought each other's wares.

Here is our entire class today with our finished grape baskets. As you can see some of us wove color into them. The red, greens, and blues are not natural colors. I used yellow strips which was wood from an osage orange tree. Some of the dark strips were made with walnut hulls and a piece of iron. We had the option of putting walnut legs on the baskets.

The afternoon spent in Osage county with the ladies, and Joe and Alice was wonderful. Alice's cookies, cheeseball, ice tea, and hazelnut coffee were excellent. I'm so glad Donna asked me to go.