In this book, Elsie Allen explains and shows how to gather the natural materials needed to make Pomo baskets and how to design them. With the aid of illustrations and photographs, she gives step-by-step directions how to fashion coiled baskets and add feathers, how to make twine baskets, and how to make baby and doll baskets and canoe baskets. This edition of the book contains two pages of new color photographs of Pomo baskets provided by Santa Rosa Junior College Museum, which is currently holding an exhibit of Elsie Allen's basketry.
In the first chapter, her granddaughter relates the story of Elsie Allen's unusual life. Elsie Allen, a fourth-generation weaver from the Pomo tribe of northwestern California, devoted her later years to the creation of exquisitely beautiful Pomo basketry. It was a tradition of the Pomo that when a person died, their possessions were burned or buried with them. It was heartbreaking for Elsie and her mother when the great grandmother and grandmother died, that even their most superb feather baskets were buried. Fearing nothing would be left of this age-old art, her mother courageously broke this custom and told Elsie she wanted her baskets kept available for future generations to enjoy. Learning from her mother, Elsie mastered the art of making coiled and twine baskets, how to add feathers to a coiled basket, and how to make baby and doll baskets among others. To keep the ancient art alive she started teaching basketry to those who were interested including basket weaving classes she taught at the Mendocino Art Center.