A Proper Basket Base

Day 243: Recently, I decided to pick up pine-needle basketry again, a craft I have not done for at least 25 years. I didn't have the proper thread to use for the stitchery, and the gauge I had cut from an old ball-point pen was really rather larger than I wanted. I made a 5" trivet using 8/4 cotton rug warp, and while it was good to have the practice, it is by no means a thing of any beauty. I ordered some waxed polyester thread and then began searching the house for anything I could use for a smaller gauge. The gauge is used to control the diameter of the coils. As the weaver reaches the end of one bundle of pine needles and the gauge begins to feel loose, more needles are inserted until the gauge is snug. The ends of the needles are concealed in the center of the coil as work progresses around. Any stray points can be clipped off when the basket is finished (and there will be a few). The pen I had cut to make my first gauge had an internal diameter of 6 mm. I wanted to reduce that by 1-2 mm. I must have tipped out the contents of every drawer in the house in search of suitable gauge material before a liquid-soap dispenser caught my eye. The tube on the pump had an internal diameter of 4 mm, perfect for the job. The stitches I have used in this flat basket base start with plain wrap to form the center, followed by several rows of split stitch. After a few rounds, I switched to V-stitch. The outer round shown here is an increase row with new V-stitches being added between those of the previous round. I will continue working V-stitch until the base is as wide as I want, and then as the edges of the basket are brought up, I will change to the decorative three-pronged fern stitch which is so characteristic to pine-needle basketry.