AROUND HOME : Basketry: The Shaker Tradition, BY JOHN McGUIRE (Lark Books; 1988)

THE SIMPLICITY OF Shaker design, the dedication to well-made everyday objects, the sect’s neatness and awesome organizational abilities (not just a place for everything but a number-letter code to make sure it got there), the appeal of self-sufficiency--all combine to make the Shakers a compelling example of American beauty and practicality. Their baskets were used for toting everything totable: laundry, seeds, pies, produce and cheese; they were also used as ox muzzles, storage containers, colanders and bushel baskets. McGuire gives detailed instructions, with photos, for making the cat-head basket--so named because when it is turned upside down the basket’s ‘feet” resemble cat’s ears--and several other types of baskets.

But McGuire also writes on Shaker history, compares antique tools with their modern counterparts and offers page after beautiful page of authentic Shaker baskets plus a few others frequently mistaken for Shaker works. For anyone who has ever admired the absolutely plain and forever useful Shaker baskets, this book is both a collector’s guide and a crafter’s inspiration. (Hard cover $24.95.)