Day 13: Sometimes it takes just the right thing to add a finishing touch to a project. When I began, I wasn't sure what I'd use for a handle on the lid of this pine-needle basket, although I knew it had to be a natural object. Oh, sure, I could have used a wooden ball, but that would have been boring. I began evaluating possibilities. Fir cones would be too fragile, walnut shells too hard to grip. Dried shelf fungi might deteriorate too quickly, and sections of twig fell into the "boring" category alongside beads and drawer pulls. My "perfect choice" needed to be small and shapely like...like a hazelnut? No, like an acorn! I put out a request to my east-coast sisters, and shortly thereafter received a bag of acorns in the mail. As a test, I treated some in the oven to kill the worms I suspected lurked inside, but found that heat made the thin shells brittle. They shattered when I tried to saw off the pointy ends. Sawing the fresh ones presented a different set of problems. For one thing, I had no way to clamp them in a vise and had to pinch the acorn between my fingers. I scored a few fingernails before I had successfully cut half a dozen of various sizes. Scraping the raw nut meat out of the interior was no easy task either, and in the process, the "lids" (caps) had a tendency to pop off, so I glued them back on. Then I filled the hollow centers with wood putty, leaving a pilot hole into which a screw could be inserted to hold the acorn to the basket's lid securely. Voila! A cute little basket just the right size to hold the bobbins I use with my Leksand loom.
