Letter Basket
Tutorial developed by Abbey J. Fedora
Digital design by Abbey J. Fedora
Michael Frederick Halliday, The Blind Basket-Maker with his First Child, 1858. Collection of Lord Lloyd Webber.
Baskets, although often overshadowed by the contents that they contain, were a highly valued craft for those in nineteenth-century Britain, being an object of convenience, transportation, and livelihood. Specifically, the work of basketry expanded opportunities for women and disabled individuals to gain financial agency through entering the workforce. As frequently advertised by blind institutions in nineteenth-century newspapers, blind makers largely contributed to the basketry market throughout the century, a demographic which is often represented in Victorian media such as literature and paintings.
For example, Michael Frederick Halliday’s painting The Blind Basket-Maker with his First Child (1858) features a blind basket maker as the subject. In Halliday’s painting, a shared level of familial support is suggested in the blind subject’s physical reliance on his wife and her returning gaze. However, the basketry supplies in the painting which are visually incorporated into the foundational structures of the house, pervading the floor and the walls, suggest that the man’s work as a basket maker contributes to the stability of the home and family. Thus, Halliday’s painting depicts basketry as a practice which builds agency and encourages stability, notably, in the familial space.
Like the familial setting in Halliday’s painting, Sydney Curnow Vosper’s An Old Welsh Basket Maker (date) and Lois Lang’s The Basket Maker (1853) depict basket making as a practice that occurs in a rural, homely setting. Although these paintings idealize basketry as a practice which is leisurely and not strenuous, the connections between the home, land, and weaving baskets were prevalent notions in nineteenth-century Britain.
Sydney Curnow Vosper, An Old Welsh Basket Maker, 1900, Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery
Lois Lang, The Basket Maker, 1853, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The basketry materials featured in these paintings are likely willow or reeds, the most common basketry materials in the UK. However, other materials such as rushes or straw were also fairly common, particularly in coil or lipwork baskets. In this tutorial, you will be learning how to make a basket reminiscent of nineteenth-century coil baskets using dried grasses. This tutorial will include the use of raffia, a now widely available and affordable option for basketry materials; in the nineteenth-century, this material would have had to be imported to Britain from dryer continents such as Africa.
Coil baskets are baskets made of straw or other dried materials, which are stitched together in bundles with cordage or string (Heritage Crafts). It is important to note that coil baskets are not unique to British and UK makers, and were very significant objects in Indigenous cultures from Australia, Africa, and Northern regions. As discussed on the Heritage Crafts website, aside from willow baskets, coil basketry made up a lot of the UK’s basketry market, and was specifically significant to makers in Britain, Scotland, and Wales (Heritage Crafts). Now that we share some understanding of the significance of basketry in nineteenth-century Britain, we can begin making.
You Will Need…
Dried grasses or straw
Scissors
A heavy-duty sewing needle
Thread or string
A tape measurer (optional)
Abbey’s supplies: dried grass, scissors, a sewing needle, and thread
Before you get started…
There are two steps you will need to repeat throughout the making of your basket: (1) adding more grass and (2) adding more thread. Before beginning Step 1 of the tutorial, get familiar with the following two processes and refer back to this section, when needed.
1: Adding more grass
When you run out of grass to stitch, gather a new bundle and combine it with the unwrapped grass by placing it on top of the remaining grass
With the new grass placed on top, incorporate the grass into your stitches (stitch method described in Step 6)
It may take a few stitches to fully incorporate the new grass into your base, so keep the grass secured with your hand for a few stitches until it is fastened.
2: Adding more thread
When your thread becomes too short to make any more stitches, cut a new, long piece of thread
Attach your new piece of thread to your original strand with a simple loop knot
Step 1: Creating a bundle
Take a small bunch of grass (less than a handful)
Trim the grass on one end to make the strands uniform
A small bunch of dried grass, less than a handful
Abbey trimming the bundle of grass
Step 2: Tying your bundle
Using your thread or string, tie the trimmed end of your bundle
Keep one end of your thread long; I left mine attached to the skein for this step
Abbey’s bundle of grass tied with thread on the trimmed end
Step 3: Wrapping your bundle
Holding your long piece of thread, begin wrapping the thread around the bundle, pulling the thread tightly after each wrap
Wrap in the same direction until you have wrapped about 4-5 inches of your bundle
Abbey’s grass bundle wrapped with thread
Step 4: Starting your base
If still attached, cut your long piece of thread from the skein
Thread the long piece of thread through your sewing needle- do NOT knot the thread on your needle
Abbey’s threaded needle with the thread ends unknotted
Step 5: Building your base
After threading your needle, take the unwrapped portion of your grass and fold it alongside your wrapped bundle
Abbey’s grass bundle with the unwrapped grass folded along the wrapped bundle
Step 6: Creating layers
Making your first layer:
Keeping the unwrapped grass in position with one hand, take your threaded needle and insert it into the wrapped bundle
Pull the needle through the wrapped bundle and then around the unwrapped grass to insert it into the wrapped bundle again. Your thread should now be wrapped around the unwrapped grass. This is the stitch you will use to create the layers of your basket.
Abbey beginning the second layer of the basket base, stitching through the wrapped bundle to connect the unwrapped grass
Continue stitching along the unwrapped grass until it is the same length as your initial bundle
Adding base layers:
Once you have stitched the unwrapped grass to equal the length of the initial bundle, you will have two wrapped bundles that are attached.
Fold the rest of the unwrapped grass alongside your newest layer (the opposite way of your first fold, like a zigzag pattern).
Continue stitching and folding in alternating directions as instructed in steps 5 and 6 until you create a base of five wrapped layers
References
Austen, Jane, and Edward Copeland. Sense and Sensibility. New Ed, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Bemrose, William. “Mosaicon: or Paper Mosaic, and how to make it.” Bemrose and Sons, London, 1875.
Bittel, Carla, et al., editors. Working with Paper: Gendered Practices in the History of Knowledge. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019.
Landow, George P., “Print Technology and Publishing: A Selective Chronology.” The Victorian Web, 2016.
"Historical Account of the Origin and Progress of Paper Filigreework, with an Accurate Description of the Present Practice of That Ornamental Art." New Lady's Magazine, vol. I, no. 10, Nov. 1786, pp. 529-530.
Price, Leah. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain. Princeton University Press, 2012.
“Quilling or the Art of Rolling Paper.” Le Monastere des Augustines, 12 Aug. 2022.
Williams, T.C. “Paper Gold: The History and Art of Paper Quilling.” Medium, 15 Feb 2022.