Reed prep is apparently 80% of this hobby and nobody told me upfront
Started my first round reed basket about three weeks ago and kept getting frustrated with cracking and splitting every time I tried to weave a tighter curve. Watched a bunch of videos, blamed my technique, almost gave up on the whole project entirely.
Turns out the actual issue was soak time. I was giving my reed maybe five minutes in water before jumping into weaving, which is nowhere near enough for anything thicker than the smallest gauge. Once I started soaking properly, closer to fifteen or twenty minutes depending on the diameter, and keeping a damp towel over my working pile so it didn't dry out mid-project, everything changed. The reed actually wanted to bend instead of fighting me the whole way.
Also learned the hard way that oversoaking is its own problem. Left a bundle in the tub while I got distracted with dinner and came back to reed that was mushy and lost a lot of its structural snap once it dried again. There's apparently a real window here, not just "more water is always better."
My base is still a little wonky and I can see where my spacing drifted about halfway through, but the sides are finally holding a shape that looks intentional instead of accidental. Working with natural materials that respond to something as simple as water temperature and timing has been a bigger learning curve than I expected going in.
Anyone have a rule of thumb for soak times by reed size, or is it mostly a feel thing you pick up over time? Right now I'm just eyeballing it and hoping for the best.