Antler baskets

I took a basket-making class last weekend at Cumberland Falls State Park Resort. I was there for a Becoming an Outdoors Woman event sponsored by Kentucky's state park system and the state department of Fishing and Wildlife Resources. This is my basket on the way to completion.




And here are photos of other people at work. We used white-tailed deer antlers supplied by the instructor, except for the weaver in the final photo. She was using a set of antlers her dogs dragged home two years earlier.




I really like the action photos like this one, where both the hands and the reed are a blur.








We were a highly enthusiastic class. As far as I know, none of us had ever done basket weaving before. It's as though we'd all been introduced to cocaine; we were committed, fixated, obsessed with weaving...and I mean that in the most wholesome sense. It was like eating potato chips the times you open the bag and your hand goes on automatic pilot.


We could hardly bear to stop long enough to go eat the blackberry cobbler and banana pudding available for lunch. (Yes, of course there were foods other than desserts. Healthy, tasty, locally grown food for the most part.)








This weaver worked night and day from Friday evening until after midnight on Saturday to finish her piece. The basket was worked between the two antlers; she planned to use it as a wall hanging.