- Katie Smith
Adventures in Pine Needle Basketry
I’ve already mentioned that I spent a week staying with my Aunt and Uncle in Colorado last month. They live up on a mountain building an off grid house, which is pretty cool!
Anyhow, while I was staying with them, my Aunt taught me how to make pine needle baskets! She has a couple of ponderosa pines on the mountain so that’s where we collected the needles from.
So far, I’ve made 4 baskets and learned a lot making those! My first basket definitely isn’t perfect because it took me a little while to figure out how to keep the stitches tight. Here are my baskets, in order of when I made them (starting with my first):
This green basket is perfect for holding tiny embellishments!
The basket below I created for Taylor. We picked up the beads while we were in Sedona, AZ they were perfect for the southwest inspired theme of the basket.
This basket is my most recent and one I tried something fun on- I dyed the needles before I made the basket! I just used RIT liquid dye in fushia to end up with this nice auburn color. I picked up those arrow shaped needles at Michaels.
Because the arrows remind me of a breeze, I’m calling this one “Mountain Breeze”. I haven’t named any of the others yet though.
Have you tried making pine needle baskets? They take a little bit of time, but I love working on them while watching movies or tv (star trek episodes!).
Also, I’m curious- Would you be interested in purchasing handmade baskets? I’m also considering posting a tutorial.