Cottage Frogs: Texas Toad Pine Needle Basket (One-of-a-Kind)

From my Cottage Frog series, created especially for FrogCon 2022 in collaboration with my grandmother, each basket features an original, hand-drawn artwork of a different species of frog at leisure and cottage architecture from their native region. This basket depicts a Texas toad in a straw cowboy hat resting their eyes by the fire. Gravel platform leads to a ranch-style cabin with tin roof and smoking chimney, accompanied by a mesquite sapling and limestone rock decor. Big, bright stars can be seen in the sky.

Basket is woven using blue and tan cording, with an accent ring of red-dyed pine needles and various shades of wooden and blue beadwork throughout. These baskets can be mounted on the wall for display or make a beautiful addition to an altar space.

Measurements

• Outer — 8.00″ height x 12.00″ width x 2.00″ depth
• Inner — Container interior is 6.5″x8.0″ with 1.25″ bowl depth with a 0.5″ wood slice inset and floated into the center

About Nanny’s Creations

Nanny’s Creations is a fiber arts and craft brand run for decades by my dear grandmother, Marion Soper, aka Nanny. She’s an expert knitter, coordinates social groups, and teaches pine needle basket weaving classes at community centers in The Villages, Florida. We began collaborating together when the pandemic put a halt on her regularly-booked craft shows, as a way to allow her to continue her craft without cluttering up her space with additional inventory. Then, we kept doing it, because it was fun. Labor note: Nanny is compensated for her work in a method she deems fit, either financially or through creation and supply of custom painted polymer clay faces, which she uses for her own products.

About the Materials

Made with needles from the longleaf pine, a pine species native to the Southeastern US. These needles were collected from in and around central and southern Florida. These pines grow very fast and very tall and have needles that are anywhere between 8-22 inches long. The baskets are each unique, woven by hand using waxed cording from Maine Threads in Lewiston, ME, and decorated with upcycled jewelry and beads. Each is coated with Minwax to protect and preserve the handiwork. Baskets can be hand washed in warm soapy water.