Round knitting basket - with an unusual tapered form.... this is 6" high to top of lid and 4.25" diameter at the bottom and 6.75" diameter at lid's top. The handle is 1/2" wide and 7" above the top of the lid.

 Most Wabanaki knitting baskets are cylindrical.  I find this form more a more graceful and pleasing shape.  The hole at the center of the lid is for an end of yarn to come thru - hook the handle over your ladderback chair finial and knit!  ... (Really great for knitters with cats)  This is in useable condition!  The orange is vivid on inside and bottom of basket but ... faded a bit on the outside.  Aniline dyes used to dye the ash weavers in Wabanaki basketry fades in the light ..  and fades quickly ... so this was stored out of the light for at least part of its "life".  

Made of brown ash splints, traditional material of Maine and Eastern Canadian Indian basketmakers, with plain tidal sweetgrass binding the rims of the basket and the lid. For the handle, this basket uses Hong Kong cord, a commercial cord from China/Hong Kong was available from about 1920 - until just after start of WWII- very effectively dating this piece.  There is braided tidal sweetgrass used as weavers for much of the overhanging lid and at the basket bottom and top.  The center basket bottom has alternating orange ash weavers and braided sweetgrass used as weavers giving it a striped effect.