WEAVE WORKS

STORY AND PHOTOS BY SUSAN BURGESS

In the summer of 2007, Ruth Hills was standing on a hot sidewalk in Key West watching a man weave palm fronds into baskets. “I walked up, and said, ‘That’s cool. Can you tell me how you do that?’ He turned his head and said, ‘This is my art,’ ” Hills says.

Taken aback, she stepped away from him. “I realized he probably thought I would take some of his business away,” she says. “But I love crafts and I just wanted to learn how. So when I got back, I went to the library in Vero Beach and found a book that shows how to weave palm fronds step by step.”

A rather unusual style depicted in the book caught her eye. It didn’t use blades cut from the main stem; it showed how to weave them while they are still attached. When complete, the stem is part of the basket and extends above it.

Hills found she could weave three, four, or even five baskets from a single frond, still attached to the main stem, one beneath the other. She could hang them from a hook in a wall, from a ceiling, or from the trunk of a tree in her yard.

Outdoors, they become bird feeders, plant holders, orchid baskets. Some hold holiday decorations. Indoors, smaller ones can be used for a series of pots to hold live or silk flowers. The stem can be cut between the baskets so that each is separate. In Hills’ house, a large one is piled with potatoes and onions.

THE MATERIALS
Getting materials to make the baskets proved to be an adventure, Hills says with a grin. She discovered from the book that only coconut palm fronds will do because only they have a hard rib on one side of each blade. The rib is needed to hold the shape of a basket. Fortunately, Hills loves people, has a ready smile, and is blessed with the gift of persuasion.

“I went up and down the streets knocking on doors, telling people I needed their coconut palm fronds, and asking if I could cut some off their trees,” she says.

“Most people said yes, and sometimes they said if I wanted to trim their coconut palms, I was welcome to come back any time. At that point I became friends with anyone who owned a coconut palm.”

Hills, 51, and her husband, Edward, live full time in a motor home. They often stay north of Vero Beach. The couple have been traveling since they retired about five years ago and sold their home in Buffalo, N.Y.

Her hobby draws as much rapt attention from onlookers at campgrounds and parks as it did for the man she first saw weaving baskets on a Key West sidewalk — or maybe more because she weaves the blades while they are still attached to the frond.

“When I am at a campground I’ll sit and work at a picnic table,” Hills says. “People always come up and watch what I’m doing and ask me how to do it.”

CATCHING ON
After a while, Hills started holding workshops in campground recreation rooms, always drawing enthusiastic crowds. At Heathcote Botanical Gardens in Fort Pierce, registration for one of her workshops filled up in three days, after 43 people had signed up.

She was weaving baskets at Sebastian Inlet Park one day when a man walked over to watch. A few minutes later he was asking if she could make some for his wedding. “The wedding was outdoors and he wanted something natural. We talked it over and he asked me to make him 75 baskets.” Some would hold bridesmaids’ bouquets. Others were to be filled with flowers and placed on the ground to mark the edges of the aisle. She left a fan of palm blades at the bottoms of some baskets for a decorative effect.

Weaving baskets at McKee Botanical Garden in Vero Beach in mid-February, Hills set up the satellite dish support on which she hangs her demonstration baskets. Before she had the last basket on the tripod, two people quietly walked up to see what she was doing, and a parade of four or five more McKee visitors headed in her direction.

Within seconds someone was asking how she made the baskets. More people joined the impromptu gathering as Hills explained. “I like them,” said McKee visitor Dottie Stose from Daytona Beach as she picked one up and looked it over carefully. “They’re natural and they’re unique.”

QUICK WORK
The palm frond baskets are simple and fast. A blade from each side of the main stalk is pulled forward and crossed. The pair above them is pulled forward and the over-and-under weaving begins.

Within minutes the base of the basket is complete. Hills pushes it upward to bring it closer to the next set of blades, then begins weaving the sides – all while the leaves remain attached to the frond’s main stem. It takes Hills less than an hour to complete a basket.

“I’m a nature person,” she says. “I love anything natural, I love a challenge, and I love these baskets.”

She also paints and makes baskets from long pine needles. “Pine needle baskets – now those are hard to do,” she says. But Hills hasn’t met a craft challenge she didn’t like. Pulling a book on palm frond weaving out of a canvas bag, she points to what may be her next challenge — some complicated looking baskets.

“I found this book at a garage sale,” she says, eying the designs on a page. “I’m not quite ready to change what I’m doing, but I may be soon.”