Six things I noticed about the bluebonnet basket at our cookie swap
I have hidden a laundry basket behind a door for forty years. These are the first two I have ever written a letter about.
Six things I have noticed since a cookie swap outside Burnet, from a woman who has bought every plastic hamper on the sale shelf and never once wanted anybody to see one.
Peggy Dalton · Customer · Austin, Texas · 5 min read
Since you have been kind enough to stop and read, I will start with who I am. I am Peggy, I am 63, and I live in Austin, Texas, with my husband Frank. Every year the ladies from our church hold a Christmas cookie swap, and every year it comes a little earlier, because half of us are on the road to children and grandchildren by the middle of December. This year it was the second Saturday in October, which Frank says is not Christmas, it is barely fall, at Arletta’s farmhouse out past Burnet, and I drove up with six dozen pecan sandies on the seat beside me.
The baskets I am writing about come from Iris and Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly dressing women like us for a few years now, and it turns out they do more than clothes. They make laundry baskets, over forty designs of them. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Arletta had us lay our coats on the bed in her guest room, the way you do. At the foot of that bed stood a laundry basket I could not stop looking at. Round and soft and cream colored, with bluebonnets going all the way around the bottom of it, deep blue spikes with a few purple ones between and little white daisies down by the floor. In October. It had her good quilts folded in it. I had it down as something her late mother made, or else a find from one of those shops on Main Street in Fredericksburg. Then on my way out to the car, there was a second one by her back door, mustard yellow and crowded top to bottom with dogs, holding the old towels she keeps for her two hounds. So when I went back in for my coat, I asked her, plainly. She laughed and said, “Peggy, every woman who has fetched her coat off that bed today has asked me. They both came in the mail from a little boutique in Austin.” My own town. Read on.
Arletta’s, at the foot of the guest bed under everybody’s coats. I took this before I knew a thing about it.
Here is what forty years of laundry has taught me. Hampers come in two piles. In the first pile are the plastic ones off the sale shelf, white or gray, cracked at the handle by the second year. In the second pile are the pretty wicker ones that snag every sweater you own, and the mesh ones that fold over on themselves the minute they are empty. I have owned plenty of all three, and every one of them lived behind the bathroom door, where nobody had to look at it.
I had spent forty years hiding the laundry basket. Arletta had put hers out where every woman in the church would see it.
The second one, by her back door, full of towels for the hounds. Every dog on it looks like somebody’s dog.
I ordered both of them that same evening from my kitchen table, with a plate of other women’s cookies at my elbow. The bluebonnets are called the Meadow, and they are mine. The dogs are called the Milo, and they are going to my daughter in Belton for Christmas, because she has a big old Labrador and two children who count dogs everywhere they go. I have had the Meadow a couple of weeks now, and going by those weeks, it comes down to six things. I will give them to you plainly.
The day mine came. It was folded flat in the mailer and stood itself right up on the bed.
Bluebonnets, all the way around, all year
This is the whole reason I wrote. I have lived in Texas all my life, and every April Frank drives me out past Marble Falls so I can look at the bluebonnets along the road for about three weeks. Now there is a field of them in my bedroom with Halloween not even here yet. The top half is soft cream, stitched all over in little swirls, and the flowers come up from the bottom, deep blue and purple with white daisies at their feet. The boutique says the artwork wraps all the way around, and it does, so there is no back side to turn to the wall.
Up close in the afternoon light. You can see every stitch in the cream above the flowers.
It is the prettiest thing in my bedroom and it holds my dirty laundry. My husband does not believe it.
Lorene P., Granite ShoalsA dog for every grandchild to find
The Milo is a different thing altogether, and I bought it on purpose for the children. It is a bright mustard yellow, packed shoulder to shoulder with about ten big folk-art dogs, a beagle with long ears at the top, a black one turned sideways, a little cream one with floppy ears and a green spotted collar at the bottom. Every one of them is looking straight at you. My granddaughter is eight and my grandson is six, and I already know they will spend Christmas morning arguing over which one is their mother’s Labrador.
The Milo on my kitchen table, waiting to go to Belton. It is going to be a hard one to wrap.
Bought the dog one for my son’s family. The kids named every single dog on it before supper.
Jo Ann K., BertramIt stands up on its own, even empty
My old mesh hamper folded over like a tired dog whenever it was empty, and I had to hold it open with one hand to drop the towels in with the other. This one holds its shape. The boutique says it stands upright on its own even when it is empty, and that has been my experience exactly. Full or empty, it stays round and tall, the same as the day it came.
Stands right up by itself. No more propping it against the wall like my old one.
Wanda H., BriggsTwo canvas handles, stitched on good and strong
There are two soft cream canvas handles, one on each side, and the boutique says they are securely stitched. I carry mine full of towels down the hall to the washer every Monday, and they do not dig into my fingers the way the plastic ones did. Arletta hauls hers full of dog towels out to the washhouse, and she says hers are holding up just fine.
The handles are sewn on tight. I carry a full load of towels in it every week.
Bettye R., Lake VictorIt is soft, and it wipes clean
I want to be plain here, because the photographs are so detailed you might wonder. The picture is printed, the boutique says so right on the page, and it has that soft quilted texture they talk about, so there is no clatter of plastic on the tile and no wicker snagging my good cardigan. The boutique also says it resists light messes, wipes clean easily and can be washed when it needs it. That is why Arletta trusts hers by the back door with the dogs’ towels, and why I was not worried about sending one to a house with a Labrador in it.
Keep mine by the back door for the dog towels. A muddy paw print wiped right off.
Darla M., Cottonwood ShoresThree sizes, it folds flat, and there are over forty designs
It comes in three sizes. The small is 14 by 18 inches, good for a bathroom or a grandchild’s room. The medium is 16 by 22 inches, which is the one I have in the bedroom. The large is 20 by 28 inches, for family laundry or for keeping the extra blankets in. It is lightweight and folds flat, which is how it came in the mail and how I mean to tuck the Milo in the trunk for Belton. And if bluebonnets and dogs are not your picture, there are over forty other designs, flowers and birds and cats and the seashore.
Both of them in my hallway for one night, before the Milo got packed up for Belton.
Light as anything and it folds right down. I have three now in three different designs.
Glenda S., Horseshoe BayThese baskets, against the hampers in the store
You can keep living with a basket you hide behind a door, like I did for forty years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Plastic that cracks at the handle
Mesh that slumps over when it is empty
Wicker that snags your sweaters
Hidden behind a door where nobody looks
Nothing you would ever give as a present
A whole picture that wraps all the way around
Stands up on its own, even empty
Two stitched canvas handles
Soft, and wipes clean of light messes
A Christmas present that gets used every day
About the price
The small is $54.95. It was $110.00. The medium is $59.95 and the large is $69.95, down from $120.00 and $140.00, and the Meadow and the Milo are the same price, size for size. I will be honest, when I saw that I read the whole page twice looking for the catch. I could not find one. Shipping was free, and both baskets were the baskets in the pictures.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that each basket is made to order, and they have a fall sale running to make room for the winter stock. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have paid good money for plastic hampers that ended up out at the curb, and two of these for less than one nice sweater was an easy yes, with one of my Christmas presents taken care of before Thanksgiving for once.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
If you have been hiding your laundry basket behind a door for longer than you care to say, or you are looking for a present for somebody who has everything except a basket worth looking at, this is where I would start. Pick your size, pick a picture you like, and take a look before the fall sale ends, because once this stock is gone, it is gone. And if you are ever at a cookie swap outside Burnet and find bluebonnets at the foot of the guest bed, that is Arletta’s, and she is the reason I will have bluebonnets in my bedroom all winter.
Peggy
THE MEADOW BASKET
- Bluebonnets and daisies, all the way around
- Soft quilted texture
- Stands up on its own, even empty
- Two stitched canvas handles
- Small, medium and large
- Lightweight and folds flat
- Free shipping
Fall sale running now, half off. Once this stock is gone, it is gone.