How to Make Cornhusk Baskets

Описание: The basket making technique demonstrated in this video is known the world over. Corn is from Central America, of course, but making baskets from the waste of the corn harvest is pretty much the same no matter where else corn may be grown. It is pretty much the embodiment of the principle of "nothing goes to waste".

As with all basket-making materials, it's important to dry everything out first. As the stuff loses moisture, it will shrink. If you were to weave a basket out fresh materials, your weave would become loose and the quality of the end product would suffer. Some basket-making materials are not flexible once dry, so soaking them may be in order. In the case of the corn husk, that is not really necessary. I did find, however, that sprinkling a batch with some water before use was useful.

You see two different styles here. One is a round-bottom one. It's the simpler of the two baskets as the bottom will naturally want to rise with each pass as you keep going around. With a little bit of effort, though, the bottom will stay flat; and that is the style that you see as my second project.

The process is kind of difficult to get going just as with other materials and techniques when it comes to making baskets. I also found it hard to properly demonstrate it in the video. I hope people manage to make heads-or-tails of it. Finishing your basket is also problematic sometimes if you want to make sure that your top coil blends in seamlessly with the rest of the rim.

The tool that helped me pull the next piece of husk through the basket was easy to conceive and make. It really didn't take much longer than what you see in the video. You can also just use a price of bent wire. You will also catch me use a simple prying tool to create an opening for the weaver. The weaver was getting a little beat up.