Mr. Basketmaker Speaks.

The following post is from my imaginative, captivating and endearing husband, Eric. (I'm being excruciatingly nice since I'm trying to convince him to let our dog Chance come with us to North Carolina. As soon as he agrees, I'll be back to picking on him.)

I have always been very interested in birch bark baskets.  Birch bark has a very distinctive feel and is very flexible, making it a great basket weaving material.

I have worked with the bark just a little bit, having made five or six container-style baskets threaded with spruce root. Even with just this small amount of time working with this material, I’ve never forgotten the experience. It makes me want to go back for more. Recently, I came across a video of Vladimer Yarish to bring all the Birch bark thoughts back.

During my travels, I have met basket makers from all over the world. One basket maker that I cross paths with every now and then is Vladimir. He is a traditional, Russian birch bark basket maker from Veliky, Novgorod. He is very experienced in homeland craft. If you ever get a chance to take a workshop with him, I guarantee it will be a truly unique experience.

The following video I want to share, is of Vladimer on the subject of  Russian-style birch bark weaving. I think you will find the video interesting and informative. It was taken at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota. —Eric

The Award Goes To...

Eric and Roland of the "Basket Bald" team.

Since January 4th, upon exiting the plane in Manchester, Mr. Basketmaker has been nagging me about when I was going to post his obnoxious win of our family's annual shuffleboard tournament held in Florida.

I say 'obnoxious' because him and his teammate, my Uncle Roland, would yell out "yuuuuuuup" every time they scored points or made a good shot. (If you have ever watched Storage Wars, then you are familiar with Dave yelling out "yuuuuuuup" for each bid, branding him the most disliked person on the show.) Well, the same opinion befell team "Basket Bald."

So I am announcing, to the world (well... the 5 people who may read this) that Eric now possesses the coveted Talbot Cup trophy. He has been wanting to win this award for three years now. His life is complete.

Someone Won an Award.

Do you recognize this award? If you do not, you will have to wait until tomorrow for the full story. I am not particularly fond of breaking posts up into climactic soap-opera-type series. But I will regrettably have to for this one.

For weeks (seven weeks to be exact), Mr. Basketmaker has been nagging me to write this particular post. And for the last two weeks, he's been wallowing that it's now too late to even bother.

Well, nothing is ever too late (except for maybe when I told my dad I would fill up the gas tank. Then did not tell him before he left for work the next morning that I forgot. Now that, was too late.)

I would like to post it all, but at the moment, I am being lazy. And there are quite a bit of photos that need processing that will accompany this long-awaited announcement. And, in my defense, I have good reason for being lazy at the present moment. Mr. Basketmaker woke up this morning and said "It's a nice day today, almost like spring." He then proceeded to open the bedroom window and stated "We're going to do some spring cleaning today."

Mind you, I am not a morning person. And, it's February in New Hampshire. Spring is like 6 weeks away! But I need to pick my battles. So I got up, and joined in the cleaning. And our bedroom was in dire need, I must say. It could have easily passed as a snapshot of a room from the show Hoarders. Not particularly proud of that, but I wanted you to get a visualization of the long day I had and why I'm not completing this post. I also cleaned the oven. So enough said about that.

And as I mentioned before, I pick my battles with Mr. Basketmaker. So I will be writing "his" long-awaited post he's been pestering me about... tomorrow.

Eric's Upcoming Workshops.

Today's post is to announce that I finally updated Eric's Workshop schedule on his website (erictaylorbasketry.com). Yeah, I know. I would much rather be writing about what I watched on TV today or how much our dog Chance loves his "Mr. Kitty" (not to be confused with the cat I'm having an online twitter battle with that I've named "City Kitty"). But this blog is titled "The Basketmaker's Wife" so I have to publish a certain percentage of basket-related content.

So Eric has a very busy schedule this summer. Which means I do too since I'm on the road with him. You can get the detailed info off his site, but to summarize, in March, we will be heading to North Carolina for the NCBA. Then in April he's in Indiana and in the last two weeks of May he is back in North Carolina to teach at the John C. Campbell Folk School. (For those of you worried about our dog Chance, my parents are back up from Florida for the summer and will stay at our home while we're gone).

In June he is close to home with a local workshop, but then we're gone for a few weeks starting off with a workshop in Connecticut and then on to St. Louis for classes at Tony Stubblefield's for four days and immediately after, at the Missouri Basket Convention first week in August.

After that, we're able to come home for a couple weeks and then we're gone again for 14 days to Michigan and Illinois and when November comes around, we're back in Atlanta.

I really cannot wait until Christmas!

Mom asks Five Questions Friday

Yah! It's time to ask Eric five questions. But since it is Joanne's (Eric's mom) birthday, I gave her the honor of asking the questions. We took her and Bruce (Eric's step-dad) to an Indian restaurant in Concord, NH and I brought my Power Puff Girls notebook and pencil to write everything down.

Mom: What is your favorite basket to make?
Eric: How can I favor one basket over the other? I do have a few baskets that I dislike weaving. Or rather, I do not look forward to weaving. But I'll leave that for another week. So, I would say that the first basket of a new design is my favorite to weave since I cannot wait to see it finished.

Mom: What is your favorite ethnic food to eat?
Eric: Since Lynne's favorite is Thai food, I will have to say that. But Indian food comes in a close second.

Mom: What was your favorite place to visit?
Eric: While teaching classes?
Mom: Yes.
Eric: Well, there are so many places I look forward to going. I don't think I can narrow it.

Mom: What's your favorite city you've been to?
Eric: Again, there are numerous cities I really like. But if I had to pick one, I would say Chicago, because we get to visit Lynne's sister and spend time with the nephews and then we take the "el" into the city and have a great time. Me drinking the local beers and Lynne enjoying the martinis.
(editor's note: of course the nephews are in bed! They're not out bar hopping with us!)

Mom: What is the best vacation destination you like the best?
Eric: I don’t really have a regular location. We like to mix it up. But what I enjoy the most is camping with Lynne. It's so peaceful and we get to "unplug" from everything and just enjoy our time being outside and doing whatever we want like hiking, checking out other people's sites, stoking the fire or napping!

Thanks Joanne! Great questions!