Maori Basket Weaving
Handmade Flax Laundry Basket
…while in Rome…!!!! While on our annual vacation to New Zealand (my husband is a Kiwi, after all!) we saw a nice basket and decided to try our hand at basket weaving. We viewed some Maori (indingenious people of NZ) techniques at the New Zealand National Library website and away we went! Michael couldn’t wait and made a small basket mostly by himself for our kumara (New Zealand potatoes) and garlic and such. It turned out pretty well, so yesterday we harvested some native flax from the driveway to make a laundry basket.
This is a native flax plant in our driveway
Material used:
20 flax leaves
Scissors for splitting the leaves
Clothespins
We started by making a base of 20 leaves that crisscrossed
Then we made four corners
Corners as seen from the top
Corner as seen from outside
All that’s left to do is weave the sides,
finish the top and make braided handles!
This basket will dry to a nice tan color. We learned a lot and can’t wait to try some other patterns and sizes.
xox
Nancy
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