Q: How long does it take to create a new basket design?
Eric: I like that question, let me think. Each project is always different. For the new Cottage Organizer basket (posted yesterday) I started playing 
with 6 months ago. I spent an afternoon making a pattern and then made a mold from it. I then had to take a break from it to get my class materials and orders completed.
Getting back from Indiana, I realized there was less than a week to submit baskets for the GBA next year. I picked up where I left off on the new Cottage Organizer this past Sunday and was finished Thursday afternoon. I was lucky that the basket went together rather smoothly — I made the body mold and inside and outside rim mold on the first try. That doesn’t always happen. The basket also has three slots for the divider pieces to fit in. This and coming up with the finish shapes of the dividers took a little time.
The other thing to keep in mind in creating a new design is that there is a lot of down time. Gluing up the body mold, then wait for drying. Then a couple coats of finish, and wait for drying. Next, I work on the base after figuring how to get the slots evenly spaced, then draw up the base pattern and lay it over the board with the slots. Shape the base, slot it, round it over and sand it. After varnishing a couple coats it will be a day before I begin weaving. All the time I do this I’m thinking If I don’t like how it comes out, I’m going to have to start this whole process over again.
In the meantime, I have my two rim molds — I boiled the rims and shaped them to the mold. Because I’m tight on time, I speed-dry the rims by putting them in our kitchen oven in various intervals. I then will be able to use them the next day. If these rims don’t fit right, I will lose another day of drying time. Rounds and oval baskets are easy to fit but this one has squared ends and if you don’t get it right, the basket’s shape will be off.
So the next day, the rims fit. Next came the most nerve-racking part: Making the dividers, which takes multiple efforts in coming up with the proper patterns. Using scrap materials it took about three times before I had it. Next, it was ready for my makeshift photography studio by Thursday afternoon. It was still a little tacky to the touch so it needed to be handled with care.
Q: Do you have a specific process when designing new baskets?
Eric: See above. I think that is worth two questions.
Q: We know you love music. What was the earliest memory you have of the first record you ever bought?
Eric: Like most kids in the neighborhood in the early seventies, I was a latch key kid in North Country of New Hampshire. After one school day when I was around 10-years-old I had a few extra coins in my pocket and I decided to spend it before my mom got home from work. The two of us lived in a home bordering the Saco River and a very old wooden covered bridge. If you look up wooden bridges of New Hampshire you will see a picture of it. It was, and still is, an amazing covered bridge and I have fond memories of playing under it.
Anyway, on this day, I walked across the bridge, up the hill, then down the hill, to the nearby Ames department store on a mission to buy something. Remember, this was the 70’s, before video games, cable TV and light years before the internet. You had to entertain yourself, yourself!
I was not sure what I was going to buy, but I was going home with something. And that something was a 45 (do you remember 45’s?) of Jim Stafford’s “Spiders and Snakes”. I played it over and over and over.
(editor’s note: Isn’t it funny how we remember early days revolving around music? I got the best gift ever — a stereo for Christmas in 1978 and it had a tape recorder! I could tape songs directly from the radio… amazing! And one song that I taped and played over and over again was “Hot Blooded” by Foreigner. Also on that tape was “Turn the Page” by Bob Seger which was by far, my most favorite song and I learned all the words by constantly rewinding that amazing tape recorder to write down the words. I still know the lyrics and in fact, the first time I ever sang Karaoke I picked that song to sing, in a crowded restaurant in The Bronx, New York, after being lost for hours – which is a great story for another day)
Q: Since the first three questions were extensive (Well, technically now the first two because you ditched the third), I’ll be easy on you for the last two. What did you watch last night on TV?
Eric: We watched two episodes of “The Pitch” that you recorded.
Q: How much do you like our new recycling bin?
Eric: I love, love, love it! And my new 90-gallon city-approved trash bin as well. They both bring a smile to my face. No more barrels rolling down the street. You know those union trash guys hate those round trash barrels. The other day I watched them beat the living crap out of my neighbor’s plastic barrels and laugh to each other. I told Lynne that they do that because they have to lift those and put them in the garbage truck. So they intentionally punish you for not buying a $60.00 city-approved bin.
(editor’s note: They really did beat his garbage barrel. It was all dented with a bunch of cracks in it. Hitting an empty barrel five times on the edge of the truck will do that! Wish I had my video camera to record it!)
Sources: New England’s Covered Bridges
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It shows that your baskets take a lot of care.
I remember Spiders & Snakes and the beautiful covered bridge.
I’d love to hear you sing Turn the Page.
I will not be singing Turn the Page anytime soon… lol