Featured Product of the Week (Basketry)

Basketry

Among our most popular hardgoods are handled baskets. Small and large ceramic pots come close, but baskets are affordable, attractive, and practical containers for potted plants and living arrangements. However, astute shoppers may have noticed that our inventory of our popular washed and stained willow baskets was finally drying up. We were not surprised when demand for new baskets followed and now we're pleased to announce that we have received fresh inventory of handled baskets in new and exciting styles. Given this popularity it would probably be fair to say that baskets are a staple decorative item in the industrialized world. However, the basket's use as a decorative item is a fairly recent development. For the majority of history they have been an essential tool of human civilization.

The age of basketry or basket weaving is unknown, but there is no doubt it is one of the oldest skills humanity learned to master. Apparently the most ancient examples were found in Egypt and radio carbon dating pins them at being between a whopping 10,000 to 12,000 years old. This predates even the oldest known pottery examples found by a considerable margin. One of the possible reasons we began weaving baskets before other skills is due to the availability of materials.

Baskets can be made with as little as some reed and grass, so this provides a low barrier for entry. This is why it is difficult to tell how old the art of basket weaving is, since such materials decay easily and leaves few or no traces at all. Another consequence however, is that baskets are usually made with materials readily available, so depending on the region different baskets were made from different things. Pine straw, oak, willow, hide, thread, rattan core (reeds), even hair can be weaved into the shape of a basket, and different civilizations developed their own distinct styles and forms to match their needs.

The styles of basket weaving can be broken down into a few broad categories:

1. Coiled basketry, which winds up a fiber of some kind like a snake to build up the shape of the basket, and using a stitch made from a sturdier material to hold it together. Coiling is a technique used by Native American tribes and appears in West Africa
2. Plaiting is a technique where a broader material, like the leaves of a palm, is interwoven in a hatching pattern that gives the basket a checker board appearance.
3. Twining is the technique of using two flexible components (called 'weavers') crisscross each other through stiffer radial spokes.
4. Woven basketry is a sort of mixture between plaiting and twining, with stiffer and flat spokes wrapped by flexible weavers. This technique is fairly flexible and can be used with a wide variety of materials.

All of these styles can be found here at BloomRite® Gardens, in more sizes and colors than can be mentioned here. To find out more about pricing and availability give us a call at 650.712.4195. We hope to see you here!