photo by Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph David Castles, 71, and Kay Castles, 67, are pictured at their home in Kilgore with some of their handmade reed baskets. Kay Castles started basket weaving in 1984 and taught her husband to make baskets after their marriage in 1988.

A blind date in December 1987 weaved together the lives of Kay and David Castles, a Kilgore couple who are passionate about their craft of basket weaving.

“A friend that has known both of us for years set us up on a blind date, and two months later, he asked me to marry him, and I did,” Kay Castles said.

However, the marriage did come with a catch.

“One of the conditions was I had to learn to make baskets with her. It’s fun,” David Castles said.

It was a second marriage for Kay, 67, and David, 71, and they used their hobby for the benefit of their three children by funding family vacations and ski trips from basket-selling proceeds.

“It worked out really well,” David said.

The couple weaves two different types of baskets. Kay prefers Appalachian egg baskets, while David’s specialty is square Jeremiah baskets.

Kay made her first basket in 1984, after she attended an arts and crafts show and met a woman from Carthage who gave lessons with her husband.

“So I took a lesson, and honestly, all you have to do is a lesson, because after that, you’re going to know, if you ever want to do it again or if you’re hooked, and I got hooked, and that was fun,” Kay said.

She gave that first basket to her mother that year, but she didn’t see it again for 30 years.

“Mom was always thrilled to get stuff from us, but she always gave everything away,” she said.

In 2014 while at Kilgore College, a friend approached Kay and said, “Kay, I have something of yours that you might like to have.”

Kay’s friend had the basket with the inscription on the bottom that marked her name and the words “first one.”

Kay doesn’t know much about the basket’s journey or how many hands it may have passed through, but she knows her mother likely gave it away, but her mother did not know her friend.

Another time, Kay was at a social event at a historic home in Edgewood and walked into the kitchen to find one of her baskets hanging from a pegboard.

“When you make them, you kind of know what’s yours,” she said. “You don’t remember every one, but you know the style that you’ve been doing, things you may do, and I picked it up and sure enough, there was my name on the bottom.”

In 1986, on a whim, Kay entered a basket at the Texas State Fair in Dallas. She won first place. Ten years later, she entered again and won again.

“I didn’t want to press it a third time, so when 2006 came along, I didn’t do it. I didn’t enter anything. Those were the only two times I’ve ever entered anything.”

Throughout their 27 years together, the Castles have attended many craft shows, juried shows, craft demonstrations and other events. The number is hard to estimate, but the couple has made and sold more than a thousand baskets.

One of their favorite events to demonstrate basket weaving is the Heritage Syrup Festival in Henderson. They’ve made it an annual event, because they enjoy seeing the other crafters demonstrate things like yarn spinning and broom making. 

At shows, the couple always brings their supplies with them and makes new baskets while offering finished ones for sale.

“Folks would say, ‘I want the one you’re doing now,’ even though there’s another one just like it on the rack, they want the one they saw you make,” David said.

The Castles also go to local schools and museums to teach children about basket making, and they have given lessons to hundreds of adults. It takes four hours to teach someone to make a basket, so adults are better suited for lessons than children, but children often are intrigued by seeing an everyday object made by hand.

“They ask really good questions, and I guess they think baskets grow on trees,” she said.

“People don’t believe you’re actually making a basket. Well, you know, it’s been going on for thousands of years. I mean, Moses floated down the river in a basket, you know. It’s a very, very, very old craft.”

Outside of basket weaving, David and Kay are avid sports enthusiasts and golfers. They are also active in the American Petroleum Institute, where they put on a golf tournament every year that raises money for college scholarships.

They are charitable with their hobby, too, offering their baskets to local silent auctions and giving them away as gifts.

“The biggest thing for us is to share it to other people and expand the art,” Kay said.