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Basket weaving techniques
Four basic weaving techniques are used to construct baskets: wicker, plaiting,
twining, and coiling. Wicker, plaiting, and twining all interlace wefts (horizontal
elements) and warps (vertical elements), but each technique brings to basketry
subtleties of design, color, and form. Coiling is more like sewing. Each of the
basic weaves has numerous variations, and weavers sometimes use several variations
on a technique in a single basket, or combine two or more techniques. Ultimately,
the beauty of a basket’s weave reveals the weaver’s creative vision
and technical adeptness at both preparing her materials and manipulating them
into a basket form.
Plaiting
In plaiting, or checkerwork, two elements are woven over and under each other
at right angles. Twilled weave is much the same, except that the weft (horizontal)
materials are woven over two or more warps (verticals). In the Southwest, winnowing
baskets, known as yucca-ring baskets, are often plaited. Southeastern basket-makers
have made twill-plaited cane basketry for thousands of years. Checker- and wicker-plaiting
predominate in the Northeast, where 19th-century basket-makers also used curled
weft overlays to begin the “fancy basket” tradition that continues
among today’s weavers.
Wicker
In wicker, the basket-maker weaves the weft material over and under a stiff foundation
or warp of rods or bundles of fiber. In the American Southwest, wicker is used
to make serving baskets and trays. Hundreds of wicker plaques are made each year
at Hopi to be used in katsina and basket dances and give-aways. Wicker is found
less frequently in other parts of North America.
Twining
Twined work begins with a foundation of rigid elements, or warp rods—very
often whole plant shoots—around which two, and sometimes three or four,
weft elements are woven. The wefts are separated, brought around a stationary
warp rod, brought together again, and twisted. The action is repeated again and
again, building the basket. Subtle and elegant patterns are made by changing the
number of wefts (as in braiding and overlay), or the number of warps the wefts
pass over (as in diagonal weaves). A weaver may use any number of twining variations
in a single basket. False embroidery, a technique in which a decorative element
is wrapped around the wefts, on the outside face of the weave, is often seen on
plain twining.
Coiling
Coiling begins at the center of a basket and grows upon itself in spiral rounds,
each attached to the round before. Weaving coiled baskets is a sewing technique,
as the basket-maker uses an awl to punch holes in the foundation through which
she draws sewing strands. These strands are single pieces of plant fiber that
have been trimmed to a uniform size. The foundation is made up of one, two, three,
or sometimes more slender plant shoots, bundles of grass or shredded plant fibers,
or a combination of grass and sticks. In coiling, designs are not made by changing
the weave, but rather by using a different color sewing thread. Imbrication, a
decorative technique unique to coiled baskets made by Salishan peoples of the
Pacific Northwest, involves folding a strip of grass, bark, or other fiber under
each sewing stitch on the outer surface of the basket.
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