Weave a Chenille Stem Easter Basket

The finished yarn and chenille stem basket.

       Learn to make a very sophisticated Easter basket using textured and unusual yarns. This is a perfect Easter craft for using left over yarns that you may have tucked away in the drawer full of discards. I have so many supplies like this! I just hate to be wasteful and not use them somehow... The supplies you will need include: chenille stems (all white), yarn, cardboard, small nail and wire clippers. I made this basket for 2019, but I'm just now getting around to posting it here, sorry.

Selecting the yarn for this craft will greatly
determine how your finished piece looks!

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Cut an oval from heavy cardboard for the bottom of your chenille stem basket.
2. Use a nail to punch holes along the outer edges of the cardboard bottom.
3. Bend the ends of each chenille stem around and up through the holes. The length of these fuzzy wires will predetermine the height of the sides of your basket.
4. At this point you may wish to wire the bottom of your basket with an extra wire or chenille stem if you intend to display it on an Easter egg tree. To wire the bottom push a stem up through and back down into two holes strategically located in the bottom cardboard.
5. Now continue to weave yarn in and out of every other chenille stem. The yarn you choose to use for this weave will greatly shape and affect the appearance of the basket; so choose carefully.
6. Shape a wire oval the same size of the base to twist the tips of the chenille stems around at the top of your basket. 
7. Weave additional yarn around the top edge to cover the top edge till smooth. 
8. Wire loops at both ends of the basket using covered wires.
9. Bend another wire for the handle and twist this through the wire loops at both ends to shape the basket handle. 
10. Cover the basket handle with more yarn.

Left, Cut an oval from heavy cardboard for the bottom of your chenille stem basket.
Center, Use a nail to punch holes along the outer edges of the cardboard bottom.
Right, Bend the ends of each chenille stem around and up through the holes. The
length of these fuzzy wires will predetermine the height of the sides of your basket.

Left, The wires inserted into each nail hole. Right, see what the bottom looks like.

Left, I decided to glue a second layer of cardboard on the bottom of my basket to make it stronger.
Center, At this point you may wish to wire the bottom of your basket with an extra wire or chenille
stem if you intend to display it on an Easter egg tree. To wire the bottom push a stem up through
and back down into two holes strategically located in the bottom cardboard. Right, Now continue
 to weave yarn in and out of every other chenille stem. The yarn you choose to use for this
weave will greatly shape and affect the appearance of the basket; so choose carefully.

Left, I chose to switch out my yarn types to make a stripe. Center, the bent oval stem for the top
edge of my basket is the same size as the cardboard bottom, however, you could adjust this to be
larger or smaller to change the shape of your basket. Right, I covered this with yarn before and 
after attaching it.

Left, See the chenille stems wrapped around the wire edge. Right, see that I wrapped the edge of
the basket again with yarn to cover the exposed stems.

More Weaving Crafts:

• Weave colorful Easter baskets using Dixie cups
• Weave yarn trees
• Weave Indian Corn for Autumn Fun!
• Construct a cardboard box loom for a child

Weave a Pine Needle Basket for A Unique Easter Keepsake

      Below, I've included an article from 1898 describing two sisters that made their living from the meticulous crafting of pine needle baskets. These baskets were first crafted by indigenous peoples long ago but American women soon learned the art of weaving these little beauties during the late 1800s. Pine needle baskets are still highly sought after by collectors today; perhaps you may find  inspiration here to continue the art of weaving a few treasures for your friends and family this Easter? 

Basket Making for Profit, Two New York Girls Have Discovered a New Road to Fortune Which Other Women May Follow, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 1898

      If you have ever bought a basket of candy in Mexico your attention has no doubt been attracted to the dainty basket as much as to the sweets. The Indians and Mexicans and the "cracker" women of the mountains of the South are expert basket makers, but it is only quite recently that a young woman of New York, trying to solve the difficult poroblem of how a woman may support herself, was attracted to this employment.

a pine needle basket

      While visiting at Aiken, S. C., Miss Mabel Compbell and her sister Stella observed the pretty baskets made of pine needles that were sold at the hotel by the country women. Miss Stella made a little basket after spending a day with the women who taught her, and before she left Aiken became quite expert. The following year Miss Mabel went out West, 'way out in the Indian country, as teacher in a family. The Indians in the neighborhood made many beautiful baskets. At Christmas she sent her sister Stella the prettiest basket to be found. Miss Stella was a typewriter, but disliked the work very much. She suggested to her sister that she learn all she possibly could concerning the making of the baskets, which she did, and also about the curing of the grasses, and in fact, invented many patterns of her own. She forwarded her sister a dozen of the baskets which she had made herself, and a lot of colored grass, in order that she might try her own hand at the art of weaving. Miss Stella combined the Indian and Southern material into a basket of an original design, which she sold to a florist for a good price. Afterward Miss Campbell went to Asheville, N. C., and pursued her quest for information concerning basket making. She returned to New York to find her sister had lost her position, her employer having gone to the war. Florists were consulted, and their orders were so large that it was decided to give all their time to the work.

      A month ago they were obligated to engage a young woman to assist them, and they regard the business as in quite a flourishing condition. They have many more orders on hand than they can fill at present. The baskets are in great demand in other cities than New York--in fact, the largest order they have had to fill came from Washington-and the baskets will be used wherever flowers or fancy candies are sold. They anticipate orders from Chicago and Boston. When the winter season begins it is probable that they will take several girls into their employ, and will be obliged to go into larger quarters. Their summer home is a cottage in the Adirondacks, and they work in an ideal way, out on the veranda, or even taking the work into the woods, sometimes staying for several days at a time.

      A party of young ladies visited them the other day, and, while it was impossible to fill the order they wished to leave, a bright suggestion of one of the girls was well received. She said she would like to take a course of lessons in the art of basket-weaving to add to her other accomplishments, embroidery and painting. Miss Campbell thinks it will be profitable to have classes in New York this winter.

      Miss Campbell, when asked if the work is hare, shrugging her shoulders, said that she had never seen anything worth while that was not hard. There is some drawback to everything, but this work is not so confining as other work taken up by women. It can be accomplished at home for one thing, it is clean, and it does not strain the back or muscles. It must be learned like everything else, the principal requirement being the ability to invent new shapes. Miss Campbell and her sister have found it pleasanter and much more remunerative than either teaching or typewriting, those occupations most affected by the women who are not so fortunately situated as to have homes of their own and a competency.

Resources:

• How to Make a Pine Needle Basket
• Pine Needle Basketry Books and Publications
• Instructions for Round-bottom Pine Needle Coil Baskets
• Prim Pines

"Watch as Susan Topham takes you through each 
step of a creative and relaxing DIY project."

Weave a Miniature Yarn Easter Basket

      This miniature basket is woven using a braided rag rug method. To make a basket the size of the one pictured here you would need:

• A braided length of yarn measuring approximately one yard; use three colors of any yarn or embroidery floss that you may have on hand.
• You will also need thread and a needle. 
• masking tape
• You will also need some kind of a spool like form; I used a toothbrush container.

      Above is a pictured sequence for making the basket. If you click on the photo it will look larger in a new window. As you can see in the second frame, you will need to work the braid in a spiral pattern until it is roughly the size of a small coin. Whip stitch the shape as you go with the needle and thread. The color of your thread will be exposed so choose that shade wisely. I chose a shade of pale grey because I liked the way that it looked. Some of you, however, may choose to conceal your stitches by matching them to the yarn colors. 

      Loop the two ends of a piece of masking tape together and press it firmly to the end of your basket's temporary form and then mount the coin sized bottom of your miniature basket onto the the form. Now, as you spin and sew together the sides of the braided yarn to itself, the shape of the basket walls will begin to form. Soon, you will have a tiny basket fit for an egg. After you have crafted the basket to the size that you desire remove it from the temporary form. Add a handle by looping the remainder of the braided yarn from one side of the basket to the other, sewing these in place. You can always add more braid into the basket design with a threaded needle should the basket appear longer on one side.