Splint Baskets

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22317, 3 February 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

Splint Baskets

Before using wooden splints for making baskets you should soak them in water for a few minutes go that they will be easier to handle. In bending the splint you will notice that the right side of the wood gives a smooth hard surface, while the other side shows the grain of the wood standing up in flakes when bent.

A useful and easy thing to make first is a pen-tray. Splints are sold in different lengths, but for this tray buy some measuring 24

inches. Take six of these and lay them down in parallel lines, wrong side up, and with a small space between each.

Take eight more 24 inch splints, cut in halves, and pass them one at a time under each alternate long splint as shown in figure 3. Be careful not to break the splints, and the result will look like figure 4. Now bend up all the spokes all the way round to form the sides of the tray. The easiest way to do this is to use a ruler and the edge

EASY AND CHEAP TO MAKE

of a paper knife to crease the places at which the spokes should bend.

With coloured raflia. begin what is known as pairing. Figure 5 shows how this is done.

Keep on going round and round the upright spokes, until nearly an inch of the work is completed. Join new pieces of raffia as required and finish off, making sure that the knots are on the inside.

Now put in a long splint, as shown in figure 6. so that it passes alternately between the uprights. Trim off the inside-uprights so that they are level with this edging splint. See figure 7. Cut the tops of the remaining uprights in points, and bend them over the edging splint carefully, tucking in the

points behind the raffia as shown in figure 8. Do this all the way round the tray, and being sure that the edging splint is held in its proper position, sew in a crisscross pattern round it as shown in figure i. ~