HANDMADE HISTORIES

Craft inspiration – and a bit about where it came from

BASKET WEAVING

Basket weaving has long history: the oldest surviving baskets found in Ancient Egyptian tombs. With plenty of reed beds and papyrus marshes to exploit, baskets were used to store everything from food to cosmetics. When archaeologists uncovered a 14th century BCE tomb of a well-to-do couple, Kha and Meryt, they found a huge inventory of domestic objects, including Meryt’s hairdressing baskets (still with hairpins and wooden combs inside) and a sturdy basket for keeping architect Kha’s tools.

Methods for making these baskets have changed little in the intervening 3,000 years. One technique creates a structure by weaving reeds or willow in and out of the ‘ribs’ that form the shape of the basket; the other uses coils of rushes or grasses that are than stitched together, used to create the likes of woven placemats and jute rugs.

Many traditional rural crafts centre around some form of basket weaving, from the ancient craft of bee-skep ( hive) making to lobster pots, swill baskets and winnowing baskets. Until the last century, the fishing industry alone relied on a rich variety of baskets, each with its own particular weave, design and delightful name: cockle pads, landing baskets, herring swills, prawn pots, creels, cobbing baskets and kipper drips, to name but a few.

Today, many forms of basket weaving are highlighted as ‘critically endangered’ or ‘at risk’ by heritage craft organisations. Included in this list are swill baskets ( baskets made from thin woven strips of oak), Devon maunds ( baskets made from wooden splits fixed to a wooden base) and Sussex trugs ( gardening baskets). Thanks to the work of contemporary crafters, new ways of making are evolving, along with a greater range of materials, from leaves, bark and stems to manmade materials like wire and paper.