BOAS] STRUCTURE OF BASKETS 193 
carried up a short distance before the work on the foot is commenced. 
When this occurs, the basket is inverted, and the material which 
formerly lay loose to the left now lies to the right, in the correct 
position for being sewed (fig. 20). It is not feasible to divide a 
watch-spring coil in this manner, for when the edge is reached, the 
coil is lying entirely to the right, everything to the left being sewed 
down. To add coil splints in the opposite direction would be as 
awkward as to bend back some of those already in place. 
There are at least two ways of constructing the loopwork foot, 
especially as far as the final rim coil is concerned. One is to make 
the loops and rim separately, the beginning and end of the looped 
coil being brought together and stitched down at the same point, 
namely, at an apex which joins the basket. 
Figure 21, a, , illustrate how this is done. Both ends are reduced 
in size, and when covered with stitching the joint is practically in- 
visible. The application of the rim coil is shown in Figure 21, ¢. It 
is begun and ended at the apex of a loop, where the ends are lapped 
over each other, having been cut down so that together they are 
no larger than the single coil. Another possible rim is the ring coil, 
Fie, 21.—Methods of making a looped foot 
but in this connection it would be less satisfactory because the joining 
of the two ends would be necessarily weak, owing to the fact that it 
is not supported by another coil sewed to it, for the apex of a loop 
is hardly a sufficient foundation on which to fasten the joint of a ring. 
In the second type the loopwork is begun at an apex near the 
rim (fig. 21, d, e), and when the circuit has been completed the coil 
is brought past the point of beginning, where it is fastened, and then 
carried around to make the rim, returning to the same point to be 
reduced and finished in the customary fashion (fig. 21 e). Figure 21, f, 
shows the appearance of the completed basket. 
About half of the women interviewed could and did make the foot, 
especially on fancy shapes. A few add this part after completing 
the side walls, but most of them have adopted the more convenient 
plan of making it first. 
A rare basket is pictured in Plate 13, a. Here the bottom is fin- 
ished with two ring coils which are added in such a way that the inner 
one seems to result from a division of the coil which made the bottom. 
The foot is constructed of four rings and above these the basket 
proper is built up. 
