MAKE A MOUNTAIN BARK BASKET

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BARKIN' UP THE RIGHT TREE

Begin your basket by cutting the lacing from a yo ung hickory or basswood. Just start at the bottom of the trunk and peel an inch-wide strip of bark ... pulling the material toward the top of the tree (Fig. 1). Your first "strap" may break off after you've only obtained a foot or two of lacing, but the pieces will come free much more easily—and be longer—with each band of bark that you remove.

Each strip must then be peeled apart and Me outer bark portion discarded (Fig. 2). The remaining ribbons of inner bark should be cc into thin strips.

(Remember, a tree will I die when its bark is stripped, so choose specimens that need to be cleared anyway. Then, once the sap ling is felled, you can get enough lacing for several baskets from its trunk ... as well as a supply of fast-drying—because the wood is no longer insulated by barkkindling.)

The basswood or hickory "strings" will be ready to use immediately, or can be coiled and dried for storage. If you choose to preserve your laces, simply soak them in water for an hour or so before you expect to work with them.

You'll also need a hoop to reinforce the basket's rim. This can be made from the inner hickory bark, too ... but any thin flexible limb will do the job.

Once the lacing and hoop have been gathered, you can prepare the "body" of the basket. Locate a young tree of about three to five inches in diameter and-on a smooth area of the trunk—mark off a section twice the depth of the proposed basket. This piece of bark should be peeled in one sheet—from the entire circumference of the tree, as shown in Fig. 3. (Again, use a tree that would have been cleared anyway, cut it down, and gather the material for several containers from its trunk.)

THE "MOUNTAIN" METHOD

To assemble your basket, take the large sheet of tulip tree "hide" and spread it out bark side up. Draw a line across this material-halfway between the two short sides and connect the ends of that scribe with two curved arcs ... to form an elongated football shape. Then, use your knife to score the markings through the outer bark, fold the material (carefully!) along the cuts ... and your basket will begin to take its final shape (Fig. 4).

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