Woven creations: Basket weaving gives senior with back pain a break
By Kirsten Ballard
Published in News on October 22, 2014 1:46 PM
kballard@newsargus.com
Seven years ago, Ingrid Quick could not move.
She was unable to twist or bend.
Her days -- and nights -- were spent in bed, recovering from a spinal fusion.
Basket weaving, she said, kept her sane.
To pass the time, she wove strips of waxed linen in and out until she completed several small basket projects.
The end results now fill her home.
There are baskets for holding keys, drying cheese and holding apples.
They come in different styles, like Shaker, Nantucket and baskets with names like the "No Snake."
They are made from various materials like oak, waxed linen and maidenhair fern.
It started with a basket weaving class at Herman Park Center -- her decision to turn a joke into a hobby.
"We always made jokes about taking basket weaving," Ingrid said. "I just thought, 'What the heck, I'll try it.'"
She had no idea that she would come to love it -- that she would join the local Goldweavers guild.
She never would have imagined that some 15 years later, the fruits of her passion would fill her home.
Ingrid, again, finds herself in recovery.
But she is bouncing back from her most recent spine surgery with a little help from her craft.
She is back to the reeds -- and wetting and weaving her recovery time away.
A large-handled basket sits on her back porch.
It's a work in progress, she said.
"I would like to get it finished," Ingrid said.
But she's a bit busy with other hobbies.
Sprawled across her workshop, there are baskets in various stages of construction. Some projects have crawled into the upstairs part of the house.
Her husband just steps around it.
But he's used to living with an artist.
The two have been married for 52 years and have two daughters and one granddaughter.
"I'll have it spread all over the kitchen and the only thing he'll say is 'How long are you going to work on this basket?' He's never gotten upset," Ingrid said. "I have knitting projects all over the place. I'm working on an afghan, a hat, a couple of sweaters."
The afghan is a gift for her newly married niece.
"You can go to the store and buy something, but it's not very personal," she says.
One of her daughters, Karen Thompson, followed closely in her mother's artisan footsteps. Karen is a local potter.
Ingrid often incorporates Karen's pottery details into her baskets.
Most of her basket weaving technique came from classes, but she has learned from books as well.
Ingrid now makes up her own patterns and weaving freeform.
"Molds are nice," she says, speaking of the weaving practice where the basket is made around an object to give it shape. "But I like freeform too. To me, it's harder to make the basket have a good shape without a mold. ... I like things that are challenge."
She blocks out time for weaving to make sure it gets done.
"If you don't get it just right, it will not weave, it's just really weird," she says.
Similar to knitting, when she sees a mistake, she has to pull out her work.
"You either take it out or you mend it," she said. "That's just one of those things you need to learn -- how to patch things up."
Some baskets can be finished in an afternoon, "depending on how many interruptions I have."
"I'm kind of a slow weaver," Ingrid said.
Ingrid's weaving takes place on her back porch. She turns up her music, a calming jazz, and lets her mind wander as she weaves the reed in and out.
"Once you get started, when you're laying out a base or grid, you have to pay attention and there's some patterns where it's not a good idea to socialize because you end up having to take it out," she said. "But I get together with a friend and we sit out here and weave and chat and we both get something done, but also enjoy talking. It's just our time."
As she works, she often stops to trim the small ends off her basket.
"I know I should wait (until) the end," she admits. "But I just don't like them. It doesn't look finished. I don't like hairy baskets."
Ingrid prefers a more natural finish. She works with natural materials, like grass, and hopes to do something with the wisteria growing in her yard.
"It's kind of fun to weave with natural stuff too," she says.
A few years ago, she made her own oak reeds from a log. She made an apple basket from the material that she had to "cut and cut and cut it."
"I can appreciate when I buy the material even though it's expensive because I know what it takes to make it," she said. "It's amazing what you can do."