MATERIALS

2 x 100g skeins Hawthorne Cottage hand spun chunky wool in English Garden
(colour 47) (approximately 50m per skein) for basket
1 x 50g ball Nundle 8ply pure wool in dusky rose for base
100m (80cm long) circular needles
5mm (80cm long) circular needles
4mm (80cm long) circular needles
5mm set of double points
6mm crochet hook

With English Garden and 10mm needles cast on 92 sts (join and work in the round). Complete 16 rounds of Nubbly Purl Tweed pattern stitch:

NUBBLY PURL TWEED

Round 1: K1, P1.
Round 2: Yarn in front, slip 1 purlwise, p1.
Round 3: P1, K1.
Round 4: P1, slip 1 purlwise with yarn in front.
Change to 6mm needles and work 12 rounds of pattern. Change to 4mm needles and work 8 rounds of patterns. Using a 6mm crochet hook work a slip stitch crochet cast off. Weave in ends.

Using set of 4mm double points, pick up 92 sts around crochet cast off (base). (Wrong side facing and inserting needle through lower loop only of crochet chain).

Round 1: K2tog, knit to 45th st, k2tog, knit to end (90sts).
Round 2: *K8, k2tog* to end.
Round 3: Knit all alternate rounds.
Round 4: *K7, k2tog* to end.
Round 6: *K6, k2tog* to end.
Round 8: *K5, k2tog* to end.
Round 10: *K4, k2tog* to end.
Round 12: *K3, k2tog* to end.
Round 14: *K2, k2tog* to end.
Round 16: Cast off remaining 9 sts.

Weave in ends. Felt basket lightly, drying over a large similar shaped bowl.

QUONDONG (NATIVE DESERT PEACH)

"The overland explorers Charles Sturt and John Stuart would probably have died of scurvy in central Australia, had they not eaten the wild fruits including the Quandong on their travels. Early settlers used the fruit of the Desert Quandong in jams, pies and jellies. They also dried the fruit like the Aborigines to keep them for future use. Explorer E.J. Eyre said that the fruit "makes excellent puddings or preserves, for which purpose it is now extensively used by Europeans". More recently the Quandong is often used in wild food restaurants and sold as jams and pies. The Aborigines often ate the nutritious oily kernels of the Quandong. Some trees produce sweet almond flavoured kernels while others produce a distasteful kernel. The distaste in some kernels is a result a pungent aromatic oil, methyl benzoate.

"The seeds of the Quandong, both Desert and Bitter are round, pale and knobbly. The Early settlers used these for making necklace beads, stud buttons and Chinese checker marbles. Today, they are only rarely used for these purposes, by locals and art and craft shops. Occasionally small operators use the wood as craft wood."

Explorer Major Mitchell wrote in 1848:

"Such health and exemption from disease; such intensity of existence, in short, must be far beyond the enjoyments of civilized men, with all that art can do for them; and proof of this is to be found in the failure of all attempts to persuade these free denizens of uncivilized earth to forsake it for tilled soil." (Source: The Australian National University)