A Mother's Journal ~ A Bit of Birdsong

I posted last week about the fabric egg baskets I made for our Albert co-op and I said I’d post directions.  Well, here they are.  It’s not as easy to explain as it would be to show someone, so I hope it makes sense.  It was a fun and cheap project! 

This first thing I did was cut 4 strips of fabric, somewhere around 16 inches long and 1-1/2 to 2 inches wide.  You can adjust the size as you want to.  I ended up liking the wider (2 inches) scraps better.  There was always length to cut off after tying, but the longer strips are easier to work with.

The next thing I did after laying out the strips in a star-type pattern was to carry them carefully to the sewing machine and sewing a messy circle of stitches in the center.  This may be the most tedious part because you have to keep straightening the strips of fabric as you go around.  This makes the bottom of the nest and does NOT have to be perfect.  I even had different color threads on my spool and bobbin, but it only added to the color!

Now it gets harder to explain.  The next step is to cut three more strips, also about 16 inches long and also about 2 inches thick.  You are going to weave one strip at a time, over and under and over and under, and then cinch it and tie it at the end to make the circumference of the nest the size you want it.  (The size of that messy circle you sewed will in part determine the circumference of the nest.

As you can see, I keep an old suitcase full of scraps, so my fabric choices were many.  I chose bright springy-looking fabrics.

The picture above shows the first strip, woven over and under and then being tied the size I wanted to make the nest.  At this point, holding one hand in the bottom of the nest, pull the original strips (blue stripes in this case) up to tighten that bottom “layer” and lay the strips out neatly for the next fabric strip to be woven in.

The second strip is woven exactly opposite as the first, and it will come out exactly right each time, i.e. you won’t end up with two “unders” or two “overs.”  Tie the second layer.

Above is the picture after the third and final layer/strip has been woven in, exactly opposite as the second layer, so you end up with a weave just like a basket.  Again, put one hand in the bottom of the basket to hold it while you pull and straighten out the original strips.

Now.  This may be the hardest part to explain yet!  You are going to have a lot of long pieces of fabric hanging off, but DON’T cut anything YET.  You will have 8 long pieces from the original set of  4 strips, in this case blue and white striped.  You will straighten them up and then tie pairs of strips over the top and final layer you’ve just woven around.  In the picture above you can see me tying one.  It will secure the top layer in place.  You don’t want to tie it too tight, but you don’t want it too loose either, because then your egg nest will be flimsy.  After tying four sets of ties around the top, you are ready to trim the ends.

Before trimming, I went around and tightened every knot so they would not come loose.  I also had to re-tie a couple because once the higher layers were done, the lower ones seemed too big.  You’ll know what I mean when you get to this part. 

After trimming, you’ll have a finished nest for a pretty egg!

Voila!

I want to tell you all how much I appreciate each and every comment.  I have not had time to answer each one over the last couple of days, but I read each and every one, and they mean so much!  Life has been very overwhelming here lately.  Thomas and I each missed at least a week’s worth of work (more for him) from his hospitalization, there were new medicines to be bought, both times he went in, I feel we got behind in life and in lessons, and of course we worry about those we love when they’re not doing so well, so we were all worried about carpenter-man.  I am so thankful that Thomas is healing.  He was even able to put in those couple of hours on the greenhouse last weekend, but John was a huge help, and Thomas really has really made sure to take it slow getting back into work, etc.

Just so you know I appreciate all of you!