Submitted by: Christa-Maria
Unit: Fiber Arts -Baskets -Recycling
Grade Level: Middle School (adaptable to lower grades)
Project: Grapefruit basket

Objectives:

• Students will learn how to make a simple basket using recycled materials
• Students will become aware how other cultures have used telephone wire to make baskets

Materials:

Telephone wire (6 ft. lengths work nicely. You can also use Telephone Station Cable) Assorted colors

Procedures

            Step 1                        Step 2                      Step 3                      Finished basket

1. To begin with you just make a little circle over your finger, than a
   slipknot to tighten that circle
2. Loop wire up and through loop making a stitch or knot - pull snug. Go all around the original circle. The type of knot is called a half hitch.
3. One just keeps on going to make it larger, one doubles how often you stitch in the row done before. It very easily falls into place when you start it, increasing by going double into a loop, decreasing by skipping a loop. It's done very intuitively...
4. Add stitches/loops to make the basket go outward. Reduce the number of stitches to make the basket turn inward. Finishing off a wire -- one just tucks the wire under some previous
   loops and cuts it, same when starting a new wire.

Resources:

The Zulu and other South African groups make beautiful coil baskets from telephone wire:
Pic #1 | Pic #2 | Pic #3 | Pic #4 | Pic #5 | Pic #6 | Pic #7 | Pic #8 | Pic #9
(from Redi People - put telephone wire basket in keyword search and the page will come up)
http://www.indigoarts.com/store1_telephone_1.html (six pages of examples and more in the archive)

Here is an eBay page with many Zulu Wire Telephone baskets (these are all coil technique) http://stores.ebay.com/Worldesigns

This page has a couple of more loosely woven telephone wire baskets:
http://pineneedlegroup.tripod.com/bb/nancy1.html

Wire Baskets by Rob Dobson | Also see baskets by Sally Metcalf- American Art Company 
More Contemporary Baskets on the site.

Books

Wired: Contemporary Zulu Telephone Wire Baskets - The manufacture and decorative use of wire in Southern Africa traditional arts dates back to the first millennium AD. Today telephone wire baskets are at the heart of growing markets for South African products and sustainable cultural industry in Zululand.

Telephone Wire and Tin Cans - This is an eBook and can be downloaded to your computer for printing. This digital document is an article from African Arts, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2006.

Submitted by: Randy Menninghaus
Project: Grapefruit Basket
Materials: Basket making reed - large grapefruit (or other fruit)

                            Molded over grapefruits                             Rock basket

Earlier this summer I had my Art teacher friends over for an end of the year celebration. I had heard of the "grapefruit" basket and asked a friend to demonstrate. I had a variety of basket making bits that some one had donated .  This was an amazing little craft experience. The success level was very high.  Large grapefruits work best, and I suspect watermelons, cantaloupes and other fruits and veggies, large rocks etc. that have an interesting shape.  You wet the  reed. We used a lot of fairly thin round reed cut in about 2 yard lengths. One begins by  looping around the center of the grape fruit  ( I would pull and go in opposite direction)  There is no traditional weaving but following the form and just trying to get enough tension on the reed., You can go under and over certain intersections I found I use a half hitch to gain tension.  When you run out of reed tuck it in and start again.  After a while you begin to leave abut a 1/3 unwoven. that's where you pop the grapefruit out.   You can take it out as soon as you have enough structure that there seems to be a form started.  We used a variety of other materials yarns, ribbons, dried plant materials feathers. We used really large rocks as well, but you had to really flex to get the rock out.  Once the basket is free from the grapefruit... you go in and weave as much as you like  I picked intersections and did spider webby things. I would recommend getting two or three people together and experimenting.

Some basket examples by Christa-Maria   See craft ideas on Christa-Maria's site. Left: Square coiled basket. Wool over rope, sewn into one flat piece, rectangular with side flaps, than folded over to fit into a box/basket shape Right: Stitched basket - with birch bark, porcupine quill insert.