Summertime is usually my quiet time in regard to basket weaving. In Mississippi, it’s too hot and buggy and snake-y to get out and collect kudzu vines and definitely not a good time to sit out on the patio and weave. This fall, I am going to try something new. Once I’m back out harvesting kudzu, I plan to split the vines and then coil and store them in the basement. After the vines dry out, I’ll experiment with using them after soaking them in water. I’ve heard of other basket makers who have successfully used this method as opposed to how I currently make baskets with only fresh vines. If it works, I’ll be able to store the split vines–not sure if it would work with whole ones…another thing to try–to use at a later date and I won’t have to rush around gathering fresh vines before teaching a workshop.
So…while I haven’t been actively collecting kudzu right now, I did go out the other day to one of my easier spots to harvest an armful of vines so I could repair a basket for a friend.
This will actually be my fourth basket repair of the summer. The first two were for a friend who takes her baskets with her on all kinds of outdoor adventures. Her two baskets had seen a lot of action: one needed a border/rim repair and the other’s base was coming apart from one side. The former basket made with grape vines wasn’t too difficult to repair. The original weaver used wire to secure thinner tendrils of grape vine along the rim to give it a decorative look and it was all coming loose. I simply added some fresh tendrils and interwove it with the existing wire.
The second basket with the loose bottom took a little more time. Not having similar weaving material to match what the original weaver used, I ended up using natural-colored hemp twine to make the repair. I sewed the undamaged part of the base to the side of the basket and it was almost as good as new.
The third basket I repaired this summer was for a friend whose family had survived a house fire and wanted to save what she could from their damaged home. The basket itself suffered no fire or smoke damage but two of its handles had split–probably from handling too heavy a load. My friend had tried to repair it herself by wrapping the split ends in yarn but it was now fraying. With my handy dandy hemp twine, I was able to sew the two ends of the damaged handles together–not the prettiest fix but it worked and was a little less noticeable than the red yarn.
The fourth and most recent basket repair was for a good friend whose young dog took a liking to one of her favorite baskets. The pup chewed on the wooden basket handles and completely destroyed the decorative border on one side of the basket. I told her if she didn’t mind me adding kudzu to the rim, I could probably repair that part for her but that I couldn’t really do anything for the wooden handles. She will just have to live with those little chew marks as a sweet reminder of her dog. When she happily agreed with the idea of a kudzu repair, I went out and collected some vines of a similar size to the material used in the original border.
Before I could begin weaving a new border, I had to splice new staves to the existing ones that had been damaged. I experimented with thin pieces of grape vine first but, when I tried to bend the new staves to see how they would work with the new border, the grape vine split. So, then I cut some thinner pieces of kudzu and used those for the staves and that worked perfectly. Kudzu is much more pliable than grape vine. Once the new staves were in place, I wove the thicker pieces of kudzu vines around them and secured the border to the corners of the basket. It’s not a perfect match to the original rim but it looks pretty darn good!
Now–onto making a few baskets with the remaining kudzu I collected for this repair. And maybe I’ll dry a little bit of it to experiment with the new method I want to try. More on that later!