I spent Friday evening and all day Saturday at the Central Pennsylvania Basket Weavers Guild annual "Spring Fever" retreat. Flo Hoppe, basketmaker, author and teacher, shared her weaving expertise and experiences while teaching three different baskets during the workshop.
The
Leaf Scoop is a traditional Japanese basket used for serving pastries and condiments, or as a flower container. The weave is an over 3/ under 3 twill and is held together at the back loop with a traditional Japanese butterfly knot.
My basket is 11" long by 7" at the widest part.
The
4 Sea Wave Basket is the first basket many Japanese students learn to weave. It has an open grid base and knotted groups of spokes forming open sides.
My basket has a 5" diameter by 4" high.
Flo Hoppe calls this tall, round reed basket
Athena. It is a sampler of various weaves and surface decoration techniques: insertions woven with a figure-8 pattern, braid weave, ridge weave and a Chinese diamond weave. The 3" base is a woven 5-over-5 overlaid base with number 2 round reed using Japanese weave. The sides are shaped to a diameter of 7" and a height of 9". Cane is used for contrast. The decorative rim is round reed worked around a band of flat oval reed.
To learn more about Flo Hoppe go to her website: www.flohoppe.com
Starting with a oval wooden base I wove round reed and flat reed in a continuous twill pattern for several rows. The decorative band began with a row of twining with round reed, followed by a row of wide cream reed, three rows of narrow blue reed and brown round reed and topped with another row of twining. Small brown reed was overlaid to create an X pattern. The basket measures 10" x 7" and 7" high. 
