If you are looking for my ooak funky pottery, it has moved to Hobbitware.etsy.com Thanks for coming back! :)

If you are looking at Green Wedding Baskets, you are probably cherishing our environment. Thank you. How are they "green"? They are made with wild, natural plants that are gathered sustainably & woven fresh, by me, 1 at a time. No chemicals or pesticides. Baskets purchased in shops have LOTS of chemicals in them. Though woven by hand, they are almost always imported. Commercial basketry materials are often treated with chemicals to make them ready for weaving. Goodness, is THAT what you want your little flower girl carrying in your wedding? I think not.
That is also how "reed" is also treated. Reed and finished baskets are also fumigated to deter agricultural pests when imported. Baskets at the local store may be inexpensive, but are also laden with chemicals & pesticide!

I decided to make something more eco friendly and safe for your little attendants to carry in your wedding...that's how Green Wedding Baskets were born. You're welcome :) All my Green Wedding Baskets are made with material I find & collect myself. It usually takes a couple of weeks to render a dried basket, and the process is like this:

I find the material, which often takes several days.Harvesting & processing & judge for wetness is usually 2 days. This might include removal of leaves and roots, etc. I also split some types of vines, and remove some kinds of bark. This process is very hard on my hands, and i generally cannot process and weave the same day.

The 3rd day is the first day i can weave. Sometimes the vines are not dry enough, and need to rest for a longer period of time. I try to weave all the material i have collected at once, making any basket sets at the same time. As they dry, the baskets will change, & weaving them all at once is usually the only way i can make them of the same relative size, shape and aspect.

After weaving, the baskets are weighted (usually with natural heart shaped rocks found by my children in the water near our family retreat!) or hung to help them keep the shape i want. They will dry for at least a week, usually three, but this depends on the weather. The green materials shrink a great deal, and sometimes i overweave them again after they have dried (start at step one all over again!)

Horsehair baskets were historically made by Native American basketmakers as a demonstration of their skill, & only the very best could make them. I love a horsehair basket best as a cherished memento of a beloved horse (yes, I will weave one with your horse's hair!) But some people just love to have a little miniature. How are they made? I had to figure it out by myself, because there are no books or classes on this. So i learned it the same way the Native Americans did, by working very hard at being a superlative basketmaker, and developing my own techniques for working with the hair.

The horsehair baskets are very tiny baskets, ranging from about 1/4" to about 3". The smallest ones are VERY challenging to make, tiny weaving is considered the best demonstration of a very skilled basket weaver.The photos you see on your computer monitor are often 10x the size of the actual basket! Hairs are handled individually, and holding the piece in order to coil it cramps the fingers. I can only produce a few very tiny ones at a time, and I have to stop and rest for a few days. It is also very easy to sew my finger to the basket, if i am not careful!

Unless you are sending me hair from your horse, I purchase my hair from reputable dealers who buy their hair from Mongolian horses. These horses are live. As it is very cold in Mongolia, they grow hair very quickly, and their owners harvest their tail hair to sell for money. The hair has been cleaned. If you would like to know about sending me your horse's hair to weave with, please message me, and i would be happy to talk with you about it.

I am known for my horsehair baskets, not many weavers attempt them. I have won over 500 awards at Fine Art and other Shows with my weavings. For an abbreviated Curriculum Vitae, please see my regular website at http://www.PamelaZimmerman.net , where my body of fine artwork is displayed.

All work shown on this shop is done by myself, with the exception of the postcards and notecards depicting my work, which are printed by professional printers.