Unit 222: Traditional basket design development 

So, having spent so many happy hours scrolling', reading and visiting to try and find inspiration for my traditional basket, turned out my mum had it sitting holding firelighters in her living room the whole time. It started its life as her school bag 55 years ago, then I remember it as a milk basket that was left out for the old fashioned glass bottles dropped off by a milkman. It's a lovely, unassuming little basket but, as it turns out, was actually quite hard to recreate!

The base is a standard oval base, but then once the side stakes are in, you do a 4-rod wale tip to butt, butt to tip all the way round to create a foot. 

Then the surprise: it doesn't have a traditional kinked rod upsett, you have to work the uprights round with some good old fashioned shaping and teasing into shape with thumb and fingers (now sore), tying it up in to galleon formation and then trying to use French randing (yes, Fernch randing) to try and aggressively shape it - both upright and from an oval into a round square. 

The French randing finishes and then, rather than a 3 rod wale to pin it in place, it uses a double french rand for a turn, then back to single. This does produce a lovely subtle line though and is a good trick to know. There is no waling to finish either and rigidly purely comes from the border. 

The handle uses three rods. One sturdy one and two slimmer ones that are scallomed and folded up through the border. has some lovely detailing from the wrapping used, in split rods, and the two side