In the spring several large linbs came down off one of my digger pines and I harvested the needles.  Also, around the same time, I made three sets of stoneware centers for pine baskets.  And the other day the urge just struck me to make one.

I enjoy making pine needle baskets, but it's one of the lowest pay-off activities (what you get versus the time you put into it) I know of.  Nonetheless, here is the result.

I very much like the little rabbit.  But the color combined with the dull tones of the pine needles really doesn't do much for me.  I thought about washing over the basket with thinned down acrylic.  But I used artificial sinew to sew the basket and it is very waxy.  So it's likely that it would have repelled the paint - altogether not an experiment to do on a finished piece.  So I livened the design up by adding the "nest" of pine needles and some stone dangles.  After I took these photos, I painted small runes on some of the stones - runes whose meaning fits with the symbolism of rabbit.

 

All in all, not a highly successful piece, but at least I finished it!