This large lidded storage basket (c. 2006) was sewn by a woman whose family has been making and selling sweetgrass baskets at a stand along Highway 17 in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina since 1949. Lavinia Nelson (b. 1921) learned how to make baskets from her mother, who used them to supplement the family’s income selling vegetables and pecans. Lavinia and her sister were among the first people to begin selling baskets to tourists at Boone Hall Plantation in 1932-33. Lavinia’s stand now sits across the street near this location. When it was built, the stand was in a great location to attract tourists visiting the area. But today, with increasing highway traffic along the corridor between Charleston and Mount Pleasant, Lavinia is one of many basket sellers who face new challenges in getting people to safely stop and buy their work.

This basket, named after the ornament on its lid, includes examples of what are called "pine knots." The round accents on the side of the lid are created by tying the ends of a bunch of longleaf pine needles. If you look closely, you can also see the other materials that the artist used to create this work. The light colored horizontal bands are sweetgrass while the slightly darker bands are made of bulrush. The darkest accents are pine needles, and the light vertical strips holding everything together are strips of palmetto.