Ply-Split Braided Baskets: Exploring Sculpture in Plain Oblique Twining

David W. Fraser

A different kind of basketry!

Ply-split braiding is a technique for making textiles by parting the plies of one cord (the splittee”) with a needle or similar tool, drawing a second cord (the “splitter”) through the gap made in the first cord, and repeating the process many times over. With 176 images, including models, this book illustrates the versatility of plain oblique twining, a version of ply-split braiding particularly well-suited for the art of basketry, in making three-dimensional sculpture. This guide to one artist’s creative process shows how a ply-split braided basket is shaped, based on the rate and location of adding and removing cords. Chapters include creating fenestrations, substituting cords, combining baskets, crossing planes, and harnessing the tension between right triangles when the hypotenuse of one aligns with the leg of another. See how these techniques are rendered in a gallery of beautiful finished work.

Size: 9 1/8″ x 8 1/8″ | 176 | 144 pp
ISBN13: 9780764346521 | Binding: soft cover

Author:

David W. Fraser is a Research Associate at The Textile Museum in Washington and a Consulting Scholar at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. His innovative ply-split braiding has been exhibited in prominent juried venues. He is a Juried Member of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen. His previous books include A Guide to Weft Twining and Related Structures with Interacting Wefts (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989) and, with Barbara G. Fraser, Mantles of Merit: Chin Textiles from Myanmar, India and Bangladesh (River Books, 2005). He is a medical epidemiologist and former President of Swarthmore College. He and Barbara Fraser live in Yardley, Pennsylvania.