Work basket

“ Dye your reeds, put all the bright colors you like into your baskets, and see if they are not much prettier and more substantial than the so-called “Indian work.” Red, blue, green, yellow, black, purple—a butterfly’s wing need not be gayer nor an old-time work-basket more useful. Large, small, medium-sized, deep or shallow—only one’s desire need determine the question.
Materials for Weaving A variety of materials are adapted to basket-weaving, but the most substantial baskets are made of reeds. When the principle is mastered you may use anything you choose which will lend itself to the work. ”

“ Basket making, which handwork the children love best to do, not only develops their judgment, makes keen their observation, makes them discriminating, but it has a stimulating effect upon their minds and awakens in them the desire to put forth their best efforts. Hanging baskets, scrap baskets, trays, etc., mean something more to them than a piece of basket work done merely because of its utility. ”

“ It can’t be much of a trade. Anybody can make a basket that has got any Indian suet. I can make as good a basket as anybody.”
“You can make a corn-basket or a clam-basket; but the basket-makers make chairs, and cradles, and carriages, and fishing-creels, and work-stands. It is as much of a trade as a joiner’s or a shoemaker’s. There is more call for basket-work in England than here. ”

“ Basket work is very cleverly woven with strands of different colours representing geometrical patterns, people, and objects. It may be thought that the outlines of human and animal figures are too stiff, but one must remember that the rigid nature of the basket work compels the worker to make straight lines. ”

“ Two of the large peach baskets fastened together at the lower end, so as to form an hour glass, and either painted or covered with cretonne, gathered at narrowest part with a band of cretonne bound with braid or else with a ribbon, makes an excellent work basket for holding large pieces of fancy work, or it may be used as the family mending basket. ”

“ The spare room which you occupy prevents you from being burdensome to us in the smallest degree, and you gain enough to supply your wants."
"Yes, that is true," added the farmer's wife. "Mary alone earns enough with her needle to support you; and as for you, James, if you wish to exercise your trade of basket-maker, you will have your hands full. Not long since I took your pretty basket with me to the market, and all the countrywomen who saw it wished to have one like it. If you like I will procure customers, and I promise that you will not soon be in want of work." ”

“ I saw a woman who merely colors willow. She could make a comfortable living at it, if she could give all her time to it; but she cannot, as she has two small children, and must give part of her time to them. In Williamsburg, I had a long talk with a basket maker. He says it is best for an [Pg 282] apprentice to learn basket making of a practical worker who has not many hands, and who will give instruction himself. He can give the more time to his learners. He spent seven years learning the trade in England. It requires knowledge of form to make the baskets of a handsome shape. ”

“ She would tiptoe to the dresser and bring out a basket, once filled with the socks of her brothers. She would crouch by the fireside, first stirring the logs to make more light for her work. It was long since the candles were gone. It was the only joyous moment in the day when she handled the dried everlastings that filled the basket. Always she must hurry, work more quickly, select the withered colors with more care. ”

“ A very pretty stall can be made as a lady's work basket, but one must know how to use ones fingers, and to glue and tack together. For bazaars these things are all very useful and so easily made that a child twelve years old can make them. ”

“ Round these boxes gather and pass on, when the work is done, to fresh fields of labour and pastures new, squalid, hungry-looking men and women, the implements of whose craft consist of a coarse bag or basket slung over the shoulder and a little rake with which they turn over and probe and examine in the minutest manner the dustbins. ”

“ Pala Boys at Work on the Farm.
And how wonderfully those fingers handle the splints. No white woman has ever surpassed, in digital dexterity, these native Indians. Do you wonder? Watch this weaver day after day as her basket grows. A week, two, three, a month, two, three months pass by, and the basket is not yet finished. Time as well as creative skill and digital dexterity are required to make a basket, and it is no uncommon thing to find three, four and even five or six months consumed before the basket is done, and the weaver's heart is secretly rejoiced by the beauty of the work. ”

“ As has been stated with much insight, the woman with her basket is as much one of the great types of working humanity as the ploughman with his plough, or the smith with his hammer. But she generally prefers the shop round the corner to the co-operative shop, not only because it is nearer a matter of no small importance to the tired housekeeper or one who has little free time between her work but also because she finds there more attention and sometimes small personal discounts which the co-operative system does not permit. ”

“ It is very interesting to watch the small children in their endeavors to make the rougher baskets, and then, as they grow in skill, try the finer work. Pul-a-gas ́-a-a is not more than eight years of age, and yet a basket—kű-ű—she brought to me was one of her own make, and it now occupies a place in my collection. The work is irregular and crude, but shows skill, and if the child has patience to stick to it, in time she will become one of the most accomplished basket makers of the tribe. ”

“ The child who works steadily over a basket, and may have it to weave and reweave many times before completing it satisfactorily, is not only receiving a valuable lesson in patience and thoroughness, and gaining much experience which will be of inestimable value later on in this particular work, but he is being trained into an efficient workman of the future. ”

“ Basket-making pays well here,—the farmers want baskets for their fruit, and the fishermen want baskets for their fish,—and its really quite easy work. As soon as you're a bit stronger, you shall begin—and you'll be able to earn quite a nice little penny! ”

“ The first thing to do is to cut down a great many withies, then wattle them into the form of a large basket, and then thou must get a large skin, dress it well with fat, and stretch it all over the basket-work. Thou must make the basket rather longer than it is wide, and more pointed at one end. ”

“ It is very easy work, and beginners soon become expert in it. It improves the effect, when the work is finished, if dark colour be painted into the depressions. Basket-work may be used for diaper ground. The American Indian basket-work, in flat strips from one-third of an inch to an inch in breadth, is easiest to imitate, and may be executed with a single V tool or firmer. ”

“ The work is exceptionally good—a fact not to be wondered at, considering they count amongst their ranks journeymen and cutters from many of the principal West-end houses. The basket-making is exceptionally good, and to a great extent made to the order of the leading shops ”

“ Just as the Hurons of Lorette are snowshoe, canoe and moccasin-makers, the Abenakis are sweet-grass basket-makers. And their market? Mais oui—all over Canada—east and west—,{156} north and south, and the United States. Rumour says that the turnover to the village and region from the baskets is in the neighbourhood of $250,000 a year. Men, women and children work at this basket industry. There is no factory. It is all pleasant homework. Women at work sit on their porches. Housewives ply their fingers in the kitchen, picking up the basket, as other women pick up knitting. ”

“ The child of seven or eight years may make a simple mat and basket and find it play work, while the older child may make beautiful useful baskets and trays for the home.
xv
Originality in the child has full play and should always be encouraged since the field of work in this ground is abundant; and he should never be discouraged, no matter how loose the weaving may be nor how crude it may look: he will soon be able, through comparison, to discover his mistakes and correct the poor work. ”

“ Many of the young women are now giving their attention to making fancy bead work, in the form of ornamental belts and hat-bands, but this is an industry of very modern origin. Some of them are employed by white people to do laundry and other work, and any labor of this kind pays them better than making baskets for sale. Forty years ago a finely made basket could have been bought for less than ten dollars. ”

“ The trades hitherto taught to women had been leather and bead work, and the making of nosebags for horses. These were found to be unremunerative, and it was necessary to substitute others for them. There was at that time a great demand for fine baskets imported from France, and it occurred to Bessie that if they could procure the blocks upon which these baskets were made and the tools used, she might learn the art of basket-making and teach the workwomen. ”

“ The peasants of our picture carry all they need for the day's work. A three-pronged fork rests across the man's shoulder, and a wallet of lunch hangs from his left arm. The woman has a basket, a linen sack, and a bit of rope. ”

“ There is no comparison in the art work of basketry and that of lace-making, yet it is a good thing the latter has been introduced. It brings these poor people 71 money easier and quicker than basket-making, and, as they must earn to live, it aids them in the struggle for existence. ”

“ An ordinary oval basket is made by preparing the requisite number of bottom sticks, preserving their length greater than the required width of the bottom. They are ranged in pairs on the floor parallel to each other at small intervals, in the direction of the longer diameter of the basket, thus forming what may be called the “woof,” for basket-work is literally a web. These parallel rods are then crossed at right angles by two pairs of the largest osiers, on the butt ends of which the workman places his feet ”

“ In basket-work, the fingers alone are exercised; few tools are required or mastered, the younger children can not finish off a basket, and it is an additional disadvantage that the work is done sitting. ”

“ They have brought the art of basket-making to great perfection. I think I must treat myself with one to hold fruit, and another for biscuits."
"When you are suited to your mind," said Mr. Durnford, "we will next examine the beauties of the
WORK TRUNK MAKER.
Work Trunk Maker
Come here, Emily, and tell me the name of this ware, as it is called." ”

“ All ends must come inside the basket; after it is dry, trim them off. You will find that in working with the wet reed your basket may seem not to have the proper shape. Soak it well and you will be able to mould as you wish it. Add a handle. ”

“ Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking’ the basket. It never is. ”

“ The large open work burden basket is called Tus, the large cooking basket, Met-too ́-silch, the small mush bowl Hah ́-tsah, the large shallow meal tray Mes-chet ́-te-gah ́, the large open work shallow bowl Tre-kwahs ́-tuk, the small open work plate or platter Kah ́-se, the subglobular choke-mouth trinket basket Net ́-tah, the milling basket Ki ́-e-sut, the baby basket Kah ́-yu, its shade Ne ́-whats-tah, the women's basket hat Ki ́-e-traht ́. ”

“ In drawing95 or weaving the work in and out over the switches they turn to the left hand side and the basket-maker always keeps a basket of water within her reach, and at short intervals dips her hand into the water, moistens the switches and straightens them back into their proper places, thus building the basket up straight. ”

“ No working-girl will carry a lunch or basket. It is out of style because it marks the girl at once as a worker. I would like to carry 116a basket, but I don’t dare, because they would make so much fun of me. ”

“ Pottery makers look up from their kiln fires of sheep manure, at you, the remote passerby. The basket workers weave and weave like the Three Fates of Life. One old woman is so aged and wizened and infirm that she must sit inside her basket to carry out the pattern of what life is to her; and the sunlight strikes back from the heat-baked walls in a glare that stabs the eye; and you hear the tinkle of the bells from the watering pools. ”

“ A bushel may hold a peck more or less, according to the last jump made upon it. The basket-makers are by no means rogues, because the contents can make no difference to them. They turn out strong ware, at a very high price, so many inches in width, and so many in depth, according to tradition. Then they pat it, and pitch it down, and paint the name upon it; and their business ends, except to get their money. And of this they never fail; for the grower, as a rule, grows honesty as his chief, and often only crop. But after that basket’s virgin fill, how many meretricious uses does it undergo! ”

“ Hurrying through shop after shop—one filled with workmen, another with workwomen, all resounding with the busy hum of labour, we at length descend into another courtyard surrounded by ranges of shopping whose windows and walls are bespattered with yellow mud flung off the grinding stones that are whirling madly round inside, amidst a steam-driven labyrinth of bands and a grating, grinding, hissing whiz that fairly sets one’s teeth on edge. Entering, we find grindstones and polishing wheels of all sorts and sizes, and behind each a workman bending closely over his work. ”