Sunday, February 2, 2014

I made baskets!

Finally, after years of saying that I wanted to learn, I went and did a full day workshop on basket making. Our teacher, the lovely Weva Deva, uses materials foraged in the bush, to keep the costs down, and uses traditional techniques taught to her by indigenous ladies. We used materials such as vines, banana tree, palm flower fronds and the brown fronds of the bangalow palm, and traditional basket cane. It made me look totally differently at plants and vines that are considered pests, and I learnt so much in just 1 day. We made a large market basket, and we used a mixture of materials.
When I got home, I searched the garden here, and foraged some vine, banana plant, palm frond flowers, and made a smaller basket. At the moment, some of the vines are still green, so the whole basket should dry up brown. This one is a very rustic basket, and the shape is not perfect, but that is something that I will concentrate more on with more practice.

All in all, it was a really nice day, and I met some lovely people, and learnt a new skill, which I will hone with more practice. I am very happy with the results, and plan to use the large basket as my vege garden collection basket.