How one coil-basket maker tightened a hobby into a profession
Ann Oakes makes baskets that can be useful or purely aesthetic.
Photo by Lauren Rutten
To inspire new crafters, Ann Oakes still brings the first coil basket she made to her art shows. “It’s all squishy,” she says. “I wasn’t wrapping the yarn tight enough and didn’t pull my figure-eight stitches tight enough and wasn’t using the right rope. I only used variegated yarn, so it’s not only all squished down, it’s boring.”
But there’s nothing boring – or squishy – about the coil baskets Oakes has been making and selling for nearly 20 years. Mixing variegated and solid yarns, she creates patterns, flowers, geometric elements, and embellishment. Some baskets have separately constructed lids, and others have handles built into the sides; she has recently added beads to select vessels — “It’s like adding jewelry to the basket.”
The round baskets are wide open or tall and deep, some are square, and some she keeps flat to be hung on walls. “I started doing those about three years ago,” she says. “When you make a basket with a nice design at the center, it gets covered up when people put things in the basket, so I make some to hang like art.”
Oakes is self taught, and her education began long before online videos covered everything from sourdough starters to plumbing repair. Sometime in the 1970s she found a pamphlet about the crafting of coil baskets and kept it, even though the ensuing decades found her too busy to even pursue it as a hobby. However, when her older daughter was in elementary school and had to do a project, Oakes pulled out that pamphlet. “We used jute and picked berries to dye it, then we made a basket together. It was sweet to do with her.”
The artist has used marine rope and coiling cord to shape her intricate vessels. As for the yarn, “as long as it’s pretty” is the guiding force.
Photo by Lauren Rutten
Many more years followed, and when Oakes was preparing to retire, her fondness for the craft emerged top of mind. “I knew I needed something to do in retirement; I’m not going to just sit around, that’s not me. So, I picked up basket making again.”
This time, she was determined to get it right and tight. “I started by wrapping the coil [rope] tighter and tighter, and got better with the figure-eight stitch to join the row I’m working on to the previous row,” she explains. “It took me at least a year to make a really sturdy basket.”
But something still wasn’t working. “I was using clothesline rope at first, and it’s just too flimsy. I went to Home Depot and looked at all the rope and found some that was $9.98 for 100 feet … which I could afford.” That marine rope — also used by rock climbers — turned out to be key (she now purchases coiling cord online).
The yarn wasn’t as big an issue: “As long as it is pretty” is the requirement, according to Oakes, who gets a lot of it from thrift shops.
The storm Helene destroyed many artists’ spaces in Asheville, but the basketmaker expresses gratitude for the generosity that helped her business survive. Oakes lost nearly 50 baskets, half of them when the River Arts District venue Local Cloth — a nonprofit network of more than 500 fiber artists and fiber farmers, processors, and educators — was deluged with ten feet of floodwater.
Photo by Lauren Rutten
Local Cloth put out a national call for yarn, and the donations — which also included tools, equipment, fabric, and more — eventually filled a truck. The Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway opened their auditorium to receive it, says Oakes. “When I went there to volunteer to help sort it, it was a dream — so much yarn! They had three fiber giveaways, and I got four big bags of yarn. I’m still using it.”
That yarn, representing the close-knit nature of the fiber community, is kept in a closet in Oakes’ home studio. “Well, it’s actually our television room,” she admits with a laugh. “I take up the whole couch, with my rope bucket on one side and my tools, needles, and yarn on the other. My husband has a nice, comfy chair.”
Oakes has a tender spot for her “tiny baskets,” which measure about 3.5 by 3.75 inches.
“They’re just so cute. I’ve made them for my nieces as they get married, to hold the rings. They’re a love connection.”
Ann Oakes will show work at Reems Creek Pottery (181 Reems Creek Rd.) as part of the driving studio tour Weaverville Art Safari happening Saturday, April 25 and Sunday, April 26 (weavervilleartsafari.com). She’ll demonstrate basket making at the Folk Art Center (Milepost 382 on the Blue Ridge Parkway) on June 20 and 21 and July 3, 4, and 5. Oakes’ Carolina Coil Baskets are sold there and at the Southern Highland Craft Guild Store in the Grove Arcade (1 Page Ave.), with additional inventory for both venues at southernhighlandguild.org; she also sells at Flow Gallery (14 South Main St.) in Marshall.