WITH PATIENCE Job would have appreciated, Susan Tyler of Fredericksburg carefully weaves a wire-thin ribbon of cane around white-oak staves leaning out from a wooden base like a flower's petals.

But Tyler, who enjoys the hobby enough to have a gadget case the size of a mechanic's toolbox, stiffens a bit when she feels the teacher of the weaving class stop behind her.

"That's a really good start," says John McGuire, an authority who's traveled from upstate New York to the Northern Neck to oversee this basket-weaving class. "Perfect, just perfect."

From across the table, fellow student Ginger Marshall of Kilmarnock breaks out in a laugh.

"Oh goodness, don't tell her that!" she says, chuckling. "We'll never hear the end of it."

No one in the creek-side gallery at the Reedville Fishermen's Museum laughs any louder than McGuire, an imposing figure with a clean-shaven head, a whitening goatee and a golden ring in one ear.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll find something to pick at later," he says. "That's my job!"

An expert on traditional New England splint basketry, McGuire has also made it his life's mission to spread the world about traditional basketry and its place in our country's history and commerce.

Sure, along the way he might collect a few hundred bucks from students who'll use one of his kits to build a traditional Shaker or Nantucket basket.

But in the process, the teacher/author/artist/TV personality will use a day or two of weaving to interject some of basket-making's history.

"Many people see baskets like these as an art form today, and they are," he said. "But if you look at the history of our country, they were the brown paper bags of their day, as well as the standard units of measure."

As his students combined the long strands of cane and the wooden staves--which act as ribs--to create a handsome Nantucket-style basket, McGuire noted that basket-making doesn't deserve the jokes it sometimes earns.

"Records show that by the time of the Civil War, basket-making was one of the top 10 businesses in the country," he said.