This post is an extension from a couple days ago. I invite you to go here if you haven’t read part one yet.
Elizabeth makes baskets as a way to sustain her income. At one point in her life this was all she did, but she has gotten into home health care and now works her basket business on the side.
I will warn you, I have a ton of pictures on this post. Please let me know if you have trouble getting them to load or anything. I didn’t know how many I would be able to load into this post. So, I’m all for trying something, so here goes.
I hope you enjoy the tour and her basket making process. In total, it took her about 2 1/2 hours start to finish. She made a dual pie basket. It was a custom made basket, the lady wanted her pies to be side by side in the basket and not have them on top of each other with a divider between her pies as you would usually see.
Again, her entrance into her workshop. As you enter the door you are in the first part of her work shop and then off to the side is another door and there is where she makes her baskets.
This is her generator she uses for many things, this day it was used to power her shop tools and also later on run the water pump to fill up her cistern.
She has gas heat in her work shop. This was hanging from the ceiling. It was nice and toasty in her workshop.
Amish are very time conscience. You will find clocks all over, even in their work shops.
Here she is cutting her wood on her table saw. Something was giving her some issues, you can see her skirt was swishing because she was trying to pound the thing into submission a little bit.
Finally, it was working and she sawed her big board in two.
As she was fiddling with things, I was shooting more pictures. This was taken through her workshop window looking outdoors.
Her two little dogs were happy to watch her. They were all over the place, almost giddy with excitement.
Here is her table saw, and she is figuring something out over on her work bench.
One thing Elizabeth is, is organized. She has order in every corner of her property. Here she has some boxes stacked up with basket making materials.
Under the ice chest is a a stack of wood, all neatly stacked, ready for her to cut the boards into primitive crafts and then paint them. She is really looking forward to having time to get to this project. Personally, I’m looking forward to see what she comes up with.
Her dogs patiently waiting on her to finish up so she can play with them.
Back at the table saw, more cutting is done.
She is careful with each measurement, making sure her saw is set just right before she makes one cut.
Another stack of wood boards, ready for her primitive craft projects.
Her workbench, all neat and in order.
I’m not sure what this piece is called? Maybe a router. Maybe some men out there can set me on the right course.
This is her band saw, I think she said.
One thing Elizabeth is, is frugal and she finds ways to organize using the things she has around her. Here she is utilizing empty coffee containers to hold small hardware items, nails, nuts and bolts, etc.
There they are, all her coffee containers neatly like pretty maids in a row. Nice and tidy.
She said this was a project she was to do for someone else.
More of her tools hanging neatly in their place, always knows where she can find her stuff.
Here she is cutting some very small slats using careful, careful maneuvers. I was afraid for her hands!
The slats would fling back off the saw and on to the floor.
The pile getting higher.
Here she is, actually cutting some of the slats to length, after cutting them the other way first.
The saw blade when it was stopped.
All the slats in the right lengths and width.
She has electric lighting, powered by the generator outside on the porch.
Now she has to round the corners of this board. It is actually the bottom of her very sturdy basket she is about to make.
She made this template and it helps her consistently get all her corners just right.
Just like that.
And the template has a spot right there above her work bench.
Here she is cutting her corners with her band saw.
Her workshop is wired really handy for her, she can use an electric sander with no problems.
More electrical outlets on the side of her work bench.
She has quite a few windows in her workshop, this is another view she has out back of her work shop. How beautiful is that?
When you first walk into her basket weaving area of her workshop you see these two half barrels. We will come back to them a bit later.
She has a large natural gas heater in this part of the room, it keeps the room toasty all winter long. She keeps stains and such in this room and it needs to be warm or the stains would ruin from being too cold. It also helps her to stay warm when she is making baskets and drying baskets.
She sat down and did a little measuring and figuring. This is a custom made basket so she has to figure out exactly where to place things, otherwise she has templates and things go along a little quicker.
She has no computer, obviously, so her handy dandy yellow page notebook is where she keeps her orders in order. Beside the notebook are a few sheets of baskets she regularly makes and I think she had them in front of her to jog her memory a little bit of what she might have to do for this custom order in front of her.
She is organized. Her shelves testify to that.
Some baskets in various states of the process to being finished.
Another window, another view from her workshop. She has some plants in this part also. So pretty.
Her basket making work table. It is low to the ground and handy to lay your work on it.
More of her organization.
She keeps everything handy and neat.
Some of her plants.
Some folks think moth balls will keep the spiders away. I faintly smelled them, and there was the box to prove they were around.
Elizabeth LOVES to fish. I found her fishing lines on her shelves.
Another view.
Her dogs were waiting..waiting…waiting for her to be done already.
These are her basket making tools on her table, handy and up close.
I forget what she calls this twine..I think she calls it sea grass, but she uses it to “top wrap” her baskets. I love the spools and the grass.
Her shelving from one end of her little space.
Her stool, I think she made it herself, it is on rollers and is low and perfect for making baskets. Elizabeth likes to work in comfort and makes things work for comfort.
Another box of slats.
I found this old scale on her shelf. I loved it for some reason, so there it is.
Here she is attaching the handle to her basket.
She said as long as she is not posing, I was allowed to capture on camera. She just worked and I clicked away. She is so handy with that hammer!
Starting to attach the slats to her bottom.
Finally, all the slats are on and ready for the next step.
A decorative reed is attached around the bottom so that you don’t see the slats.
I’ve made a couple baskets and this part is really hard for me. She makes it look so easy.
The weaving begins. Her basket is sitting on top of a lazy susan of sorts and so the basket goes round and round as she needs it to.
The weaving progresses.
Weaving is finished.
Decorative reed same as on the bottom edge is now attached all the way around the opening.
Top wrapping begins. I believe she has three strands going at once here. This part is hard, very hard, I’ve done it before and always need her coaching to get me through the process.
And here you see, the top wrapping is finished and has a nice woven look all the way around the top of the basket.
Done with the weaving, not finishing touches.
She uses a torch to burn off any little strands of wood and reed that might be sticking out. This makes the basket look nice and polished.
She is very careful to get every stray strand. I love to do this part. wink wink
There she is holding the torch so you can see what she is using.
Now, to stain the basket. First she put on some old coat and plastic apron, grabbed a bucket of stain and stirred it as you see her doing here.
Then she lifted one of those barrels and turned it around and it was a bowl to use to stain her basket in.
You see a pile of cloth, she got a scissor and cut a piece off and pitched the rest back on the shelf.
She made a funnel with a milk jug.
See, just like that.
Cloth is inside the funnel.
Her scoop to scoop the stain out of the bucket.
Her stain stirrer.
Basket is placed inside the barrel and she holds her funnel over the basket and starts to pour stain into the funnel, to be sure there are no particles in the stain.
Once the stain has been funneled through the cloth, she then takes her scoop and pours the stain all over the basket. When she has a lot of baskets to stain at once, she will pour a lot of stain in her barrel and dip the basket, but since she only had the one, she did it this way, so she didn’t have to mess with so much stain.
Finally all stained.
Now she takes the time to rub the excess stain off the basket so that it doesn’t bubble and run as it is drying.
The basket is finished and now sitting in front of the heater to dry overnight. She said her church folks somehow ventilated the heater so that she is able to do this. Her stain is also a water based stain.
Cleaning up.
Another look at the basket. I wonder what kind of pie the lady is going to be baking and transporting the first time she uses it?
This is part of the pumping system she has to pump water into her cistern. After we were done making the basket and had cleaned up she got this running. But then she noticed her pipe out back was frozen, so she took the time to go out and un-thaw the pipe with same torch she had just used on the basket.
There she is, using the torch on her frozen pipe. She is a gutsy lady, I have to depend on my husband to do all those kinds of manly man things, but she somehow finds a way to just do it. She does rely on her church men to come help her with some of her work, she did say the first time the pipe froze her neighbor from church came over and showed her how to un-thaw it.
I hope my pictures didn’t daunt you or were too much. I felt like I had so many good pictures to show of the process and what her workshop looks like. She is a precious lady to allow me to come and take pictures and answer all my questions and still love me at the end of it all. She wants to read my posts once I have them up. I am actually hoping folks will comment either here or on my Face book page so she can read what the readers thought. If you have something to say to her, please let her know here. I will be letting her read all of it.
I do have one more post to do on her. It will be on her store. In that post I will show you a small sampling of baskets she can do. She said she is pretty much cleaned out right now and doesn’t have a large selection. If anyone would want to order a basket from her, please private message me on Face book or email me at sage_solstice@yahoo.com and I will connect you with her.
If you like this post or any of my other posts on my blog, I would love if you would share a link with others. I’m trying to market this blog on my own and get some buzz going so that when I get my book written I will be able to point a publisher to my website and Face book page and show them that there are folks who are interested. I need help doing so though. In return, if you have something you would like me to share for you, please let me know.
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