It was a wonderful weekend at the Hickory, PA Apple Festival. It started with a bit of drizzle on Saturday morning but quickly cleared and proved to by a great day for the crowd.

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I’m not always thrilled to find that something I’ve collected is made from something altogether different than what I thought it was — or what the tag said it was.

Two perfect examples of this have cropped up in my basket collection recently. I thought both of them were pine needle coil baskets. I and the folks who tagged them in the respective antique shops I bought them from were wrong. I’m not upset though. These are the kind of mistakes a collector can come to enjoy...

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In an effort to provide more information and reference material I’ve added three new sections to the site. Read More...

Pine is Pine? Not really. I had the pleasure of teaching a pine needle basketry class this past Saturday. A question was posed that I couldn’t immediately answer. How many varieties of longleaf pine are there? Perhaps the gist of the question was actually, how many varieties of pine are there with needles long enough to be easily usable in basketry. Read More...

What is the difference between wicker, oak, ash, reed?

There are hundreds of materials used around the world to make functional and decorative baskets. Some of them have been in use for thousands of years. So, how can you tell what your basket is made out of? The fastest way might be to take it to a basket maker near you, if you know one. If you don't have that luxury you can start with the internet (and if you are reading this blog that means you're already part way there).

I'll start with identifying reed baskets. These are fairly prevalent and reed has been in use

The Wikipedia entry for basket weaving is quite good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket-weaving

Tags: baskets, identification