During our visit to Kansas City, we drove out to Jamesport, MO. After a delicious lunch in a Mennonite restaurant, we visited an Amish store and community nearby. Pictured above is a laundry basket, which I purchased from the store. It cost $50. Yes, $50 for a laundry basket, thus the title of the post. I am a pushover for beautiful handcrafted objects, and I have a special affinity for baskets. I have baskets upon baskets, pine-needle baskets, palmetto baskets, and Native-American baskets of various materials.
The basket is pictured above, and it's lovely, in my humble opinion. The handles are made of leather. Leather handles on a clothes basket! The picture below shows the solid wood bottom of the basket.
Pictured below is the straw hat that Grandpère bought for a much less money. He would not model it for me to take a picture, so I did the best I could with no model. He'd look like a proper Amish gentleman in his hat, except that I'd have to photoshop his shorts and tee-shirt into a long-sleeved shirt and long pants with suspenders and add a beard. With just those few changes, to all appearances, he's Amish.
Click on the pictures to see the fine work close up.
Then, we stopped at an Amish farm to buy fresh-picked corn, which we cooked as soon as we arrived back at the house. It was out-of-this-world delicious!
UPDATE: My middle picture seems to have disappeared, and I cannot upload it again. I will try later. I suspect Blogger. OCICBW.
UPDATE 2: Yay! I was able to upload my picture again.
I don't think that you are at all crazy, Grandmere. That is a delightful piece of craftsmanship and in my opinion worth every penny. I think our large plastic laundry "basket" came from Walmart and that cost nearly $25. Yours, however, is beautiful, and has a story to tell!
ReplyDeleteRR, that's how I justify $50 for a laundry basket. It's a thing of beauty.
ReplyDeleteNow the question is, "Shall I use it for laundry?"
ReplyDeleteI, too, have an affinity for things that combine the simplicity of earth and craft, tradition, toil and discipline.
To wit - first nations artifacts, in their original intent a combination of beauty and utility (why not?), strew all over the house, doing nothing but telling silent stories.
Thanks, grandmere (et grandpere, aussi.)
:-)
yes, I meant "strewn" (sigh, preview...)
ReplyDeleteYou're not crazy. Why not have a basket that's a work of art? It might make the task of doing laundry slightly less tedious.
ReplyDeleteScott, it has already served its purpose to hold laundry. If something is useful, I like to use it. GP has already sweated in his hat.
ReplyDeleteBut PJ, girl! Laundry is FUN!
Oh, Mimi honey, if laundry is FUN you may have gone a bit off your chump, but we luvs ya anyway.
ReplyDeleteIt is a stunning basket and in your purchase you have honored honest craft and artistry. It will be a joy to you each time you use it. Sounds like good value to me. I don't have any specific feelings for the plastic laundry baskets except when they turn flimsy.
I really like that laundry basket! It looks and sounds like fine workmanship. I think it was a good buy. (Remember this is from someone who hangs clothes out to dry! In fact, today I washed three loads and hung them all out--rotating the dry for the wet things as the day wore on.)
ReplyDeleteI don't usually feel guilty about supporting artisans. It's a way of protesting that mass-produced age.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Paul, for luving me anyway. Now I'm asking, "Am I crazy, or did I just dream that I had another picture?" I know that I did.
ReplyDeleteJan, I'd like to do that. The clothes smell so good.
Ruth, you make a good point.
It looks like a wonderful basket for laundry. It didn't cost you as much as I paid for a handmade basket I keep my magazines in. I refuse to consider myself crazy for enjoying lovely handmade items rather than some expensive "latest, must-have" thing.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth
(having trouble with my password again)
Remember when the laundry baskets really were baskets? Not as nice as your new one, but woven baskets nonetheless. Not because we didn't want plastic, but because, well, it wasn't available.
ReplyDeleteI guess that ages me . .
Me, too, Jim.
ReplyDeleteI think, if God didn't want us to have things that were beautiful as well as utilitarian, he would have found a different way for us to get cherries. Enjoy your basket, and Grandpere in his hat. They're wonderful.
Elizabeth, I suppose part of what makes it such a guilty pleasure is that it's only a lowly laundry basket.
ReplyDeleteJim, I remember when all the clothes basket were works of art compared to the Walmart plastic baskets.
Kate, thanks. And thanks to all of you. I feel so much better. My guilt feeling are reduced to nearly nothing.
I love handcrafted things! It is a beautiful basket and will last forever.
ReplyDeleteGuilty pleasures are the best.
I love handcrafted things! It is a beautiful basket and will last forever.
ReplyDeleteGuilty pleasures are the best.
Two Auntees, yes! I will, very likely, never need to buy a laundry basket again, unless this one meets with a terrible accident. Why I'm actually saving money!
ReplyDeleteMimi you are NOT crazy. You are simply addicted to beauty, that's all.
ReplyDeleteI have a weakness for old, illustrated books, myself. At least the laundry basket is functional.
I LOVE that basket and would buy it in a heartbeat. Of course, as a life professed member of the OSL (Order of St Laundra) I take seriously the quality of the liturgical objects employed in the holy rites of laundry.
ReplyDeleteI could even be tempted to go higher than fifty dollars. Maybe you will feel better, Mimi, if I tell you just how much higher. A few weeks ago my daughter and I were shopping for a bassinet for her about-to-be-born baby. We were sorely tempted to spring for the $450 (plus tax and shipping) one at Pottery Barn, consisting of a finely woven basket on a wheeled cart (see it online at http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/zf250/index.cfm?pkey=cbassinets%7Cb )
Clearly, as a bassinet this would have been an extravagance, since the baby would outgrow it in a few months. We saw clearly, however, that the item would then serve as the ultimate laundry cart! And we don't expect ever to outgrow our need for laundry. Moreover the cart was so beautifully made that we imagined it would last a lifetime.
If this were not enough, I pointed out, the basket could be lifted out, freeing the cart (with the addition of an oval-shaped glass top) for use as an elegant cocktail or tea server.
We knew St Laundra would approve (we didn't even need to pray over it), but there were certain other parties to the decision who would never have been able to grasp the appropriateness of a $500 outlay for a laundry cart, even if it happened to be a laundry cart that would be a source of endless inspiration and be passed on to future generations. So we let it go.
Diane, thank you. We all have our small vices, don't we. We must comfort one another.
ReplyDeleteSister Mary Clara, you are movin' on up.
I love good quality handmade goods too.
ReplyDeleteBTW Blogger has stolen my profile photo!
You're not crazy, my luv grandma.
ReplyDeleteNice to see your blog.
DP, Blogger has been acting up lately and doing very naughty things, like blocking the hosts from posting on their own blogs. The pictures on this post will enlarge only by right-clicking and opening them in IE. I use Firefox, and I can see your Simpsonized image.
ReplyDeleteCahya, welcome. Thank you, luv. I have a feeling that I know you, but I'm not sure. Am I correct?
Sue-z and I make crocheted prayer shawl and baby blankets. The blankets are printed flannel with little pastel baby footprints and hand prints that we get from Hobby Lobby where it is an exclusive.
ReplyDeleteWe cut 1 meter square pieces, hand crochet single crochet stitches into the fabric and then add some we think, spectacular edgings. The resulting blankets are utterly unsallable, we have 100 hours in each one, and cannot possibly get what we invest. So we give them as gifts.
What we hear over and over again is that we should sell them. We have some patterns for the stiches that we have designed and as far as I know no one else does. But how do you price something like that?
It is a problem for most crafters. I know a woman who does amazing knitting and has the same issue.
FWIW
jimB
Jim, I once made tufted baby quilts, but I have no idea how I'd price them for sale. I gave mine for gifts, too. It's been a while since I made one.
ReplyDeleteI have a few pieces of hand-made furniture which cost much less than the labor that went into them. The man who made them does the work out of love and is happy to have a buyer who appreciates his craftsmanship and the amount of work that they require.