The Heart of Almanor

Row Three

This is where you need to make some decisions about your basket. Do you know what IT wants to be? I know this may be new to you, but you should close your eyes and relax and try to see the basket in your mind. What shape is it? Tall and holding beautiful flowers? Pencils? Or shallow and wide sitting on the coffee table with a few miniature pine cones in it? Do you see it? Once you get the idea of what your basket wants to be, then it is easy to make the decisions.

If it is tall, then you will put the front on the outside. And this means your needle always goes IN the basket on the OUTSIDE. The front is always facing you, no matter what its shape. So the basket will be made going counter clock wise and the concave side (bowl side) will be away from you. The needle will have an up-angle as you stitch the sides, but for now go straight in.

If it is a shallow basket, then you will want the front side on the inside of the basket. So it will be made going counter clock wise and the concave side (bowl side) will be facing you. The stitching will still be done with the needle going in the basket on the side facing you.

What makes it a "front"? Well, some stitches look the same on both sides--but not all. Your stitching will always look better if you have the side that the needle goes in as the front side. Most left-handed people will go clockwise, but the stitching stays the same. The direction of the coil (clockwise or counter-clockwise) will determine the direction of the spiral if the stitch is a spiral stitch.

To start out we will do a stitch that looks the same on both sides. But first, two rows of the Split stitch.

Cut a piece of drinking straw (I like Burger King Straws-they are less likely to break than McDonnald's and are a little bit bigger) and thread it on to the needles. This will act as a gauge. Just remember to keep it FULLof needles at all times and everything will fall into place. With just a twist of the straw, the needles will align themselves into a tighter bundle. So once in a while, give them a twist. The gauge will alsohelp save your hands from the pain of hours of pinching everything tight and holding it all in place.

Stitch about 1/4 of an inch to 3/16 of an inch apart. On your start you should have about 12 stitches when you have gone all the way around. Each stitch should be made about halfway to one-third deep into the row below.

Running out of raffia?
OK, tie a square knot with the old and the new ends on top of the edge. Do a couple of stitches, then go back to the knot. Put the needle into the basket at least two rows deep, then thread the needle with the ends, and pull through. If you give the raffia a tug while you clip the end off, the ends will spring back into the basket. This is how it will be done in all open core work for now.

On this example, I have more than 4 rows. Also, instead of stitching into the center of the raffia, I stitched beside it. Continue to do the split stitch--this will look similar.
Bravo!!!! You have completed 4 rows! So it only took you 3 hours. You will get faster in time.

Row 5 - stitch twice in each spot (Straight Wheat Stitch). When you are doing this, it will look as if you have one diagonal (slanted) and one vertical (straight up and down) stitch all the way around. Remember to keep the gage FULL at all times. This picture will not look exactly like your basket. I did not do two rows of the split stitch first. And I am on row 7 here.