oh my gourd?

Hi All,I just fell over this website - http://www.thegourdquilt.com/ - and I had to share it here ... LOL ... the things that people make quilts out of! ... yes - a quilt made of tiles cut from gourds!
... actually the "here" originally was the scquilters yahoogroup - yes - this is another "copy and paste" of most of the contents of an e-mail I sent to a list ... LOL
I mentioned that someone on that list might be interested because last year I went to the "fringe retreat" that she organised (a sort of quilty retreat) for a group of us from that yahoogroup ... it was at the persons siter in law's place (a fairy garden that is open to tourists and sells plants and stuff ... including the painted gourds ) ... now back to the copy and pasting - ... and she grows gourds ... and she paints them (very nicely too, imho ) ... and I was allowed to bring a couple of her gourd "rejects" home with me (unpainted ones that were a bit mouldy looking and had holes in them, that were lying around in the garden ) ... now I am inspired ... lol ... but not to do a gourd quilt! LOL - I actually found the site while following a link that I followed from another website that I had found by following a link from a basket weaving website (and yes - I AM subscribed to a yahoogroup called "basketweaving101" LOL) ... and that (making some kind of basket thingys) is what I might do with these gourds ... and/or some crochet stuff (maybe even using free form crochet too) ... although I could possibly do something, to at least one of them, that involves actually attaching some patchwork/quilting to the gourd ... but I definitely ain't cutting them up to make a "quilt" of gourd tiles! LOL... the site I was originally at is www.nativetech.org ... which is an interesting website all about American Indian "technology" (baskets, clothing, beading, etc etc etc) ... I went there because I was looking to make sure the site was still there and that it still had instuctions for pine needle baskets - because someone on another yahoogroup I am on (called basketweaving101 ... LOL) wanted to know how to make them and if there was any info on the www ... yes - baskets are another crafty thing I dabble in ... LOL
hmm ... y not? - I was actually going to copy and paste this anyway ... before I got side-tracked and ended up posting that gourd tile stuff to the scquilters yahoogroup ... LOL ... here is what I said to the basketweaving101 people ...
Hi All,
I fell across www.nativetech.org a few years ago ... and it is still there but even better (they keep updating it ) ... it has stuff about all sorts of crafty things done by the American Indians, including pine needle baskets ... in fact there is even more stuff about basketry than there was last time I was there - http://www.nativetech.org/basketry/index.html seems to have info about all sorts of basket weaving that they did (and has a list of links as well, but I have not looked at those yet) ... if you go here - http://www.nativetech.org/basketry/coilindex.html - then there are links to info on pine needle baskets and some instructions on how to make them ... I think I actually used instructions from this website when I made a couple of pine needle baskets ... but the page has been updated once or twice since then - LOL (and I still have NOT finised the last couple of baskets I started ... they have been "lost" in my pile of mess for a year or 3 ... LOL)
if you go to http://au.photos.yahoo.com/aykayem and look at the album called "more crafty stuff" ... there is a photo of a pine needle basket (that I made) in there (is 3rd one in the album) ... it is pine needles and grass and stuff ... I think I need to take some more photos and put them up somewhere - I have a couple of other baskets I have made out of pine needles and other stuff (using the same technique) ... and I have also done some woven baskets - there is one in that "more crafty stuff album" actually (it is the 11th photo in there) - I think that is the first basket I ever made (probably nearly 10 years ago now - eek!) ... unless you want to count the "stubby holder" (thing u put your bottle of beer in to keep it cool while you drink it ) that I made out of jute when I went to an open day at a craft center one day in about 1986 ... eveyone else just ended up with whatever shaped jute basket that ended up happening as they wove it ... but I worked out how to shape mine as I went along ... so I knew that basket weaving was something I wanted to do more of ... just took me a few more years to end up getting to do it ... I will have to remember to try and find it - then I can take a photo of that and stick it in my yahoo photo albums as well ...btw ... the last photo in that album is a turtle thingy I kind of invented ... that is the best photo I have - someone liked it so I gave it to them ... but I never got around to making another one for myself ... lol
btw ... for those who might be wondering - yes that photo titled "yes - cooking IS creative" - it really IS something I made - the recipe calls them rum balls I think ... but I usually use port because I usually have port in the pantry but not rum ... I took the photo because I made them for a canberra crochet group meeting we were supposed to be having at a friends place but she got told, at short notice, that she had to work that day - and had to cancel the meeting - so I e-mailed her the photo of my "afternoon tea" I had made - just so she could drool over what she had missed out on (I did make her some more later, and took them over to her, to make up for it )
oh - I just read those instructions and realised - they mention how to do the weaving - but they don't seem to mention how to prepare the pine needles first! - which those who have done lots of basket weaving with natural plant fibres might already know but a beginner who is reading this may not - it helps to know how to prepare the fibres/pine needles before u start weaving - with mine I just did what I was taught to do with other plant material - I collected dry ones (and I have also collected green ones and dried them out, but I have not actually woven those yet) and then before I started weaving the basket I soaked them in water (warm water for a short time - forget how long it took - until they are soft enough to bend without breaking - seems to work ok if one is not into planning to far ahead ) ... one could probably use fresh (still green and soft) ones but once they dry they tend to shrink so the basket will become loose and floppy ... so it is probably best to dry them and soak them so that you avoid that problem ...
btw ... (seems to be my favourite "word"?) - I have also used a similar idea to the basket weaving, to do crochet baskets - using yarn/etc and crocheting around a length of cord ... and ending up with a similar sort of basket but with crochet around a core of cord instead of stitching around a core of pine needles/etc ... but I have not put a photo of that on the www yet ... (I will when I get around to it ... it was only in the last few weeks that I have done those, and I only took a photo of them yesterday ... lol)
Andrea Carew,
disorganised in Dunlop (a suburb of Canberra, Australia)
... heading off to look at some more of that Nativetech website - as those who looked at my photos might have noticed - I am into all sorts of crafty stuff ... and that website seems to have a LOT of crafty stuff on it ... LOL (yes - I have made dream catchers - learnt how to do that from looking at one that one of my Husband's friends made ... but I have not made moccasins etc yet ... lol)
yes I did look at more of that website ... followed a link ... that had more links ... followed some of those ... and ended up finding that gourd quilt thingy ... LOL
hmmm ... my writing e-mails and stuff - in fact my whole life - seems to be one side-track after another ... I wonder if I am really going anywhere? then again ... does it really matter WHERE I am going in the end? ... as long is the journey is good ... LOL
... maybe one day I might have to type up the stuff I wrote (years ago) about how life is like swimming through pea soup ... and how it is hard sometimes, but pea soup is good for you ...

I suppose I really should go to sleep ... have to get up in the morning (unless it is raining cats and dogs or something) because the plan is for my dh (darling husband) and I to go for a motorbike ride with a few friends (kids can stay home and play on the computer or whatever ) ... he rides, I am a pillion passenger ... which kind of led me to a rather weird idea for a quilt or something ... it kind of came from the fact that the reflections of the passing trees on either side of the road look rather interesting in the back of dh's helmet ... LOL ... the round shape kind of distorts the reflection - so that my head/upper body looks vaugley like a butterfly body with "Wings" of curved trees on either side ... so ... IF I can ever manage to draw u some kind of design that sort of looks like that ... then I might eventually make a quilt (or something) of it ... and maybe call it "papillion" ... LOL

er I think that is enough raving on and on and on for now ... LOL

but ... it probably isn't "goodnight" quite yet ...
(soon, probably quite soon, ... but not right exactly now )