When you hear, "oh, yeah, spirals... it's just triple twine", yeah.... no.  Creating spirals in basketry is all about the Math.

It starts with the amount of stakes you have and the design that you want to make. Check out the above platter.  There are three patterns of spiral included in it, can you pick them out?  The first two in the center are easy but where is that third one.  It's actually that natural stripe about in the middle of the basket but it doesn't look like it does it.  It's a reverse spiral or a spiral to the left when weaving to the right.

So let's break it down.  First off, yes, a spiral does happen when using three weavers in a triple twine (or 3 rod rand, same thing - different name) but it's dependent on the number of stakes your weaving on.  

In this first example we are going to say that we have 37 stakes and 3 weavers.  

     37 stakes divided by 3 weavers = 12.333

12 is inconsequential, the number to look at is the decimal, in this case .33.  It's less that .5 anything less than .5 will spiral to the left whether your weaving to the right or not.

Second example we increased the STAKES by one for a total of 38.

     38 stakes divided by 3 weavers = 12.666

Once again, the whole number 12 is inconsequential, the decimal .666 is MORE than .5 and so the design will spiral to the right.

Third example we increase he STAKES by one for a total of 39.

    39 stakes divided by 3 weavers = 13 

In this computation we end up with a WHOLE number so the design will STACK and NOT spiral even though it has 3 weavers.  

You'll never wonder which way it will spiral or if it spiral at all if you use this simple trick.

What Basket uses this Technique?