Happy Father's Day and A Basket Class

First and foremost on our minds today is: Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. My dad passed on in 2000, but I still think about him on this day, well and on many other days too to be honest. My dad was a great person. He taught me about God. He taught me how to love people unconditionally. He taught me to be honest. He taught me to be funny and love God, family and country. He was a WWII vet. He is always in my heart.

Today I wish a Happy Father's Day! to my husband, son-in-law, brothers and nephew and any other guy that might find this blog. :)

Here are two special dads. The UPS Store guy and our son-in-law. Thank you, both, for being the men that you are. :)

Well, one of the crafty things that I have been doing lately is taking a basket class. I love baskets. They are all over my house. I haven't really ever purchased an expensive basket, but I love the ones that I have. At spinning one day, the subject came up, "Let's make a spinner's basket!" We all thought sure, we can do that! It didn't matter to us that most of us had NEVER made a basket, we knew we could do it. Piece of cake. (hahahaha!) I now know why baskets are expensive. :)

So, we scheduled the class and about 12 of us showed up for that class. The instructor was/is great. But, we needed a second class. So, we went back in shifts. 12 people, most beginners, was really too much for one class.

The day arrived for my second class. It had rained and a cold front had moved in. Yipppeeeeee! A cold front in TX in June is a miracle. The temperature was about 78F, when I arrived and arranged my things.

One of the first things that I saw was a hummingbird. Just lovely and I had to share it.

Here is my basket. The basket is made in two levels. At our first class we made the bottom level and the second class was for the top level(which is attached to the bottom level). Not really for beginners, but our teacher, Nancy was great about it and helped us! She is a spinner too.

Notice the ice water, ice melted. The spray bottle was used to spray the reeds and to spray ourselves. Our cold front quickly heated up to 95F and sunny.

Kate is working hard on her top basket. We made the top basket and attached it to the bottom basket at the same time. (Notice another spray bottle) It was hot.

Kay finished her basket, isn't it pretty!!! (notice water spray bottle and 2 water bottles to drink from, remember it is TX)

Kate's basket is finished! Just wonderful! On Kate's you can see the dowel rod that sits into the handle, to hold your bobbins.

Laurie finished her basket too. She did some fancy weaving on the bottom of her top basket. Pretty isn't it? (another spray bottle) :)

On to my basket. From the top. I put in a little bit of extra on the bottom of the top basket too. The holes in there were pretty big.

When we made the second basket that sits on top of the bottom one, we could add more color, I used more blue and some orange with it.

Here it is all finished, ready and waiting for spinning fiber!

Before leaving, Nancy, gave us an ice cream cone! Thanks Nancy! We are so grateful to her, that she was willing to help about 12 spinners make a spinner's basket, and that she has E-Z pop up tents, so we could work in the shade.

Oh, and we told her that we would love to come back (in the fall) and take a beginner class now. Seriously, we did tell her that and we do mean it. It was a lot of work to make this basket, but it was fun.

And you know, I love baskets. :)