In making baskets or hand-guards for a pair of singlesticks, take about eight long thin osiers and with them form a slarth. As both butts and tops of these eight osiers are to form the border, they must be laid thus - a butt, a top, a butt, and so on. Use two small rods to tie the slarth. Four of the eight osiers will have to be laid first, then the other four across them. When the tie-rods have been worked alternately twice round, the osiers are opened in turn by working the tie-rods between them, thus forming sixteen uprights to receive the weaving, or pairing. A small piece is scallomed at the butt of one tie-rod and lapped round the four under rods. To get the hand-guard to shape, carefully gather the sixteen stakes and place themin a small hoop; peg the whole to the edge of the workboard with a small bodkin or wire nail passed through a leaden weight. Now form each stake by gently pulling and bending. Take two small rods, place one top behind a stake, with the tip end in front of the stake before it, and the other rod behind the next stake to the right; then pair these two rods round one over the other in and out of the stakes. When they will not work further, piece them with the butt ends of two other rods.

Pair the work to the proper depth, which will be between 3in. and 4in., when the stakes can be laid down to form the border, as in the above sketch, a, B, and C are first laid down, each stake passing behind two others, in front of the third and fourth, and finishing in front of the sixth, as shown at F. The stakes D are to be laid down in turn. The fencing-stick, a stout ash stick, is passed through near the border of one side of the guard, and out near the crown at the opposite side. Small wood pegs are put in the sticks outside the baskets to keep them from sliding off the ends.

Making Hand-guards for Singlesticks.