a tisket…a tasket…a green and yellow basket…

And then something about sending a letter to someone I love, and losing the thing…and now that I think about it…I don’t think I have ever seen a green and yellow basket…except maybe at Easter.

Anyway, this week I am pondering some more green organizing solutions going on here at the house. (Last week I wrote about organizing with wood.)  Along our journey away from plastic bins, buckets, and boxes, I’ve begun collecting…slowly…baskets. Thrifting one here, rescuing one there, and now, I am even considering making one myself.

Back in the old days, when this blogger was in third grade, and her teacher lived in a teepee, I tried to make my first basket. It was made of raffia and pine needles. (We did a lot in third grade that wasn’t on your main-stream-grade-school syllabus. Plucking a chicken for the boarding students’ dinner and making pine needle baskets were among the off-beat curriculum requirements.) I kind of remember this being a difficult task. Pine needles breaking. Pine pitch on my fingers. My fingers turning black. And never finishing that first basket attempt.

Beside that assignment I never paid baskets much attention when I was a kid. We’d used a deep wire basket hung high up on a nail near the ceiling where the air is warm for ripening fruits. And another round squat wire basket with handles was for collecting fresh eggs from our chicken coop. And now I can’t think of a single other basket we used back then. (I phoned my mom about this lack of basket use in our home, and she informed me ,that she didn’t much like baskets and that kids broke them. That was why we didn’t use many.)

When I entered college and read one of the winter seminars was entitled “Underwater Basket Weaving,” I just laughed. And I started to reach for the plastic. I couldn’t imagine how you’d weave a basket while swimming around under water. When one of my friends took that class, I figured out that only the basket is underwater. Not the weaver.

Fast forward to today. I am finding that baskets that are made of natural materials are difficult to find. Books about making baskets are easy to find. And so are basket making supplies. So maybe when I get up the guts to try making one again, I’ll choose a simple pattern, locate some pruning shears, and give it a go. Until then, I am sticking to uncovering the few and far between hidden treasures at my local thrift shops.

Even in scarce times we are using natural baskets more and more in this house.

This basket bin organizes all those odds and ends that need to be near the telephone. (Because they just don’t have elsewhere to go.)

This old top-hinged picnic basket tucks away my knitting projects and yarn stash.

This is the pre-school green wire grocery shopping basket.

This lovely basket was rescued from our toy-pile and put to work organizing wash clothes in the bathroom.

I believe these were desk filing trays in their former life. Now they beautifully organize my pantry and chest freezer stuffs.

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If you do run into a basket on your next trip yard-saling, thrifting, or sifting through your grandmother’s basement, here are a couple of things to consider before you bring that baby home with you.

• Avoid mildew and mold. Avoid anything with spotty black stuff on it, and avoid the ones that smell musty.
• It must have a sturdy construction. Avoid baskets with missing parts, handles that are frayed, or parts that stick out. You wouldn’t want your farmer’s market beets to roll through the parking lot because your basket busted.
• Eye varied shapes, sizes, and colors. Since you can store tiny kerchiefs in a small basket, as well as a down comforter in one much larger, vary the shape and size of the baskets on your thrift store shopping list.
• Lids are nice. I like ones that close and pretend that the cluttered contents on the inside mean nothing to the serene brown cane exterior.

Baskets made of natural materials can provide sturdy, hide-away organizing. And metal baskets can withstand freezer temperatures as well as the humidity of a steamy bathroom. So, do away with the plastic bins and reach for a basket. Maybe if we continue to use baskets at home my kids will have more fond memories of baskets then I do.

For more ideas about how to make One Small Change to your lifestyle, and read what others are doing to live more sustainably, visit Hip Mountain Mama’s challenge blog!