My Tobacco Basket

This is the tale of a tobacco basket.  It survived quite a journey to get from Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina to my home in Maine. Thanks to some good karma and two good friends, it finally arrived.  

Here's the story . . .

I first saw "my" tobacco basket at this antique shop on our camping trip "Down South" in March.

The shop, Linda Page's Thieves Market, is right over the Ravenel Bridge from Charleston in the town of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. It's a fun place to stop if you get to the Charleston area.

I looked up, saw the big tobacco basket, and I knew I had to have it. DH did not exactly agree.  And his arguments were pretty sound:  Tiny camper; HUGE basket (40" square!), long ride to Maine. As those of you who have been married for a while know, sometimes you do have to "know when to fold 'em". So . . .

I left South Carolina basketless.

Back in Maine, I was still  pretty bummed about missing out on my basket.  "Maybe", I thought, "I'll just make my own." I found a good tutorial on a blog called Anderson & Grant. But once I figured out the cost of the materials and the time it would take to make, I got discouraged. To weave the size basket I coveted, I'd have to mold the reed around a card table top (per another site I found). How was DH not going to notice me doing that???

So I looked online. I liked these vintage tobacco baskets on Etsy. . . until I saw the shipping charges. . $300.00! No way. Looked like no tobacco basket for me.

And then the BIG IDEA hit me!

While we were "down South", our Maine friends, Bob and Peg, stopped by our campsite to visit. They had "followed" us to Florida and said they were planning to stop in Savannah and Charleston on their way home in April.

Hmmm . . . Maybe Bob & Peg could go to the "Thieves Market" for me and sneak the basket home in the back of their car.  Then I'd just have think of a way to slip it into the house, nail it to the dining room wall, and act as if it had always been there.  (DH would never notice.)  So I texted them.

Here is Peg's reply from the Thieves Market; the basket was still there!

Good friends not only go along with our crazy ideas, they dicker. Bob and Peg saved me 20% , bringing the basket down to $80.00. They texted me this picture of Bob holding the basket with the caption, "Mission Accomplished".  Yes, the basket is almost as  big as Bob!

The last photo they texted was this one. Final challenge was met:  The basket fit in their car. And, the next day, it was on the way to Maine!

I figured that if anyone could figure out a way to get that huge basket into a fully loaded Subaru it would be a physics teacher like Bob. Those skills helped him win Survivor Gabon in 2008. Bob and I taught high school together for years and remain friends.

Here are Survivor Bob and Peg, my "basket buddies", in Gabon, Africa.

Yesterday, DH and I drove to Bob and Peg's farm and picked up the tobacco basket.

It was a bit tricky to hang, but it's up now and is the focal point of my dining room.

I think this tobacco basket and I were meant to be together.  

And we are  . . .thanks to good friends.

I love it!

This post is linked to:

Amaze Me Monday #259 at Dwellings

Happiness Is Homemade Link Party #215 at The Painted Hinge

Metamorphosis Monday #480 at Between Naps On the Porch

Sundays at Home Link Party at Little Farmstead

Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Through Life

Talk of the Town at Knick of Time

Wow Us Wednesday #382 at Savvy Southern Style

Faces of Fiber College, Part 1

I've been away from the blog enjoying camping on Penobscot Bay at beautiful Searsport Shores, the home of Fiber College of Maine. One of the best things about Fiber College is the chance to make new friends from different backgrounds and cultures. Here are some of their faces . . .


Waiting patiently while Mom & Grandma cook our Somali feast

"Fiber College of Maine is an annual fiber festival whose sole reason for being is to celebrate the fiber arts in all forms. Maine is particularly blessed with artistic energy and inspiration from the flow of the tides, the rolling hills of the blueberry fields and the stars in the night sky."
 ~Fiber College website


Phoenix making a ceramic button

At the beach bonfire, I met three very funny women who had come to Fiber College together from Massachusetts. Somehow we started talking about the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and our tendencies to hoard materials for whatever our fiber passion is. (Somehow, that seemed hilarious at the time.) After we parted, I worried that I never find my new friends again. . . we'd been talking and laughing in the dark!


Hula Hoops on the Beach

But, the next day, they found me. 

And here they are, the self-proclaimed "Three Hoarders"!

 

Weaving a Wattle Fence

Last weekend I learned that if you can do this (and who among those of us "of a certain age" couldn't still make one in our sleep?)...

You can do this.

Wattle fences were used in medieval times and are defined as "consisting of rods or stakes interlaced with twigs or branches".

Wattle fences aren't as common in America as in England...except in Searsport, Maine, of course, where anything is possible.

Last weekend, we joined our friends Astrig and Steve at Searsport Shores to help them clean-up their campground for Spring. My friend Anita and I took on the challenge of finishing the wattle fence near the art studio. Before last weekend, I didn't even know what a wattle fence was...now Anita and I were weaving one!

Thankfully, it had been a rainy week and there were plenty of damp fallen branches around the campground to use. Anita's husband, Fred, helped by trimming some of the larger ones for us.

 While we wove outside, our Fiber College friend, Alice, was busy threading a loom inside the art studio.

 


 

And while we were all weaving...

 

and posing with our finished fence...

Hank and "the guys" were felling dead trees...

Saving bear-bothered bees...

 

 



And cleaning out "Cheryl's Green Shed" for the last time (I hope!).

After a day of hard work, Astrig and Steve always reward us with food and wine (smart campground owners!) They built an outdoor beehive oven behind the art studio over the winter so dinner was homemade flatbread pizza with fresh herbs.

Anita took her turn at the oven...

While Alice and Astrig prepped the flatbread.

Is it any wonder we come back here every year? Great friends, great food, creative work...

 

 

and the ocean right outside our camper door.

 

We're weaving memories!

 

Summer Camp for Adults???

 

"A Fall Weekend with friends on the ocean…add fiber, color, food, gardens & beaches…What’s not to love?"    ~from the Fiber College website

Did you go to summer camp when you were a kid? Remember weaving lanyards with colored gimp?  Collecting acorns and feathers? Making baskets? Well, here's your chance to do it again...thirty, forty, or fifty (who's counting?) years later.

 

 

Welcome to Fiber College...where creative women of a certain age come to play!

Fiber College is the "utopian dream" of a wonderfully warm and creative woman named Astrig, and her husband, Steve, who own Searsport Shores Ocean Campground on Penobscot Bay in Searsport, Maine.

 

 

Aside from operating the most beautiful campground in New England, Astrig and Steve garden, raise bees and goats, weave, spin, knit, build, dig clams, teach, create, and cook up a storm.

 

                

And, best of all, they invite other creative souls to share their dream once a year at Fiber College.
 

Fiber College happens every September in Searsport, Maine the weekend after after Labor Day.

 

For 2014, the dates will be Thursday through Sunday September 4-7. You can attend for all four days or just one or two.

 

 

 There's an annual a beach-side fashion show of creations made by Fiber College participants...

                    

As well as classes on everything from bookbinding to basket making... 

 

from paper folding, button collecting, quilting, and photography, to blogging.

 

Our blogging class was co-taught by professional photographer and fiber artist, Gale Zucker (check out her blog at she shoots sheep shots) and professional writer, Beverly Army Williams, whose blog is called PoMo Golightly.

                   

 

There were classes in everything from weaving, dying, knitting and felting...

 

 

to fly-tying and wood-carving.

 Classes were offered in sewing, making penny rugs, embroidery and crochet...

  As well as demonstrations, exhibitors, music, shopping, sharing, wine, food and friends.
 

 
 

You can't help but leave inspired by the amazing women you meet at Fiber College...

 

 

Like Anita and Louise. In addition to their art, they both have great blogs of their own.

Anita's blog is called Tumbleweeds (click on link) and Louise's blog is Adventure of the Geritol Gypsy.

 

 

On their blogs, you can follow either of these amazing women on their travels around the country in their RV's and learn about their latest hobbies and creations. They also have lots more photos of Fiber College 2013 on their blogs.

                        


And did I mention the goats?

Sound like fun?  

For more information you can go to the Fiber College blog, or...

You can get on the mailing list for Fiber College 2014 by emailing relax@campocean.com .

 

 

 or follow them on Facebook here.

                      

 You can come to Fiber College for a day or stay over at the campground, a local motel (reduced prices after Labor Day!) ...

  or in one of the adorable Searsport Shores "bunkhouses", campers, or cottages.

 

 

 At Searsport Shores, even the outhouse is unique!

(Yes, there's a modern bathroom too!)

 

                  

And with a view like this...

 

 

 What's Not to Love?

 

p.s. I couldn't seem to remove this photo from the page, so, Astrig and Steve, you're on here twice and this one appears to be permanently Supersized! (Where's Gale Zucker when I need her???)