At the moment, Eric’s most popular basket for workshops right now is his new Cottage Gardener Basket. It is gorgeous. However, peeking in his workshop today to see what he’s been up to, I discovered that there’s a little more work in creating the class materials for this basket than is needed for his other baskets.
Above are the molds he has been creating the last couple days. It may look like some pieces of wood haphazardly nailed to make a frame of sorts. But it is not. They need to be the right angle and built to precise measurements. After he’s done with all these, he will pack them up to get ready for the Michigan workshop in October and then on to Georgia next, in November.
But it doesn’t end there with the student molds. He also has to build separate molds that he uses here, in his workshop for all the handle materials. In the long steel tray above, he is boiling the wood so he can bend it on the square wood-plank molds he created that are stacked nearby.
Now this is all for only the MOLDS. He still has all the uprights, the weavers, etc. — Honestly, way too much work and too time consuming for me. That’s why he’s the basketmaker, and I only write about it…
Can’t wait to make it at the Basket Cottage in November!
Well, I cannot wait until he either makes another sample basket or he decides not to teach this at workshops anymore so I can use the basket in my garden next year!
What a beautiful basket! I guess I haven’t seen it before. Fantastic, Eric.
It would probably have helped to put a better picture of the gardener basket instead of the one where I just plopped it on his workbench.
I believe he made it last year for submittals and that’s the one that has been selling out this year.
Beautiful as always.
Kathy
Thanks Kathy! I’ll let Eric know his “unseen” hard work does pay off!
The Cottage Gardener Basket is beautiful.
Thanks for letting us know what Eric is up.
Always interesting! Would like to hear also about your work & paintings.
I know. Posting my own work seems to be hard.