
Baskets and basketry have long been
and continue to be an integral part of the material culture of countries around the world.
In the past if you wanted to collect baskets from a different country, you had to plan a
trip and travel widely to amass a collection from a distant land. The Internet has made it
entirely feasible to collect a diverse collection right from the comfort of your own home.
Palm fibers dyed with natural
dyestuffs, are used by basketmakers from Zambia, or Botswana in Africa
to coil or twine intricately patterned baskets that are a wonder to behold. Africa will
also lead you to baskets from Uganda
or Burundi made from
maize, sorghum, raffia or palm leaf. Or on the other hand, you might have an interest in
coiled baskets from Mexico.
Workshops in the Philippines employ
many weavers to create a line of bamboo, banana stalk, vine, split rattan or stick baskets
available to the wholesale trade. Pitcairn
Island is home to a group of industrious weavers who offer shopping, sewing and work
baskets. In addition they market fans, table mats and woven hats of pandanus leaves.
European countries are also well
represented on the web. You might enjoy painted diagonally plaited splint baskets from
Sweden, willow Celtic baskets
from Scotland, or rush
baskets from England. The winters
may be long and hard in
Siberia but the
craftsmen there create beautiful tooled and stitched birch bark containers which you can
collect for a reasonable price.
Asia has a rich basketry tradition and
you can collect baskets of rare complexity and beauty from Japan and
China including an antique bamboo basket fountain.
Take stock of what you have in your
collection and take the plunge. Surf around the world to choose just the right single
piece for your personal collection, or an entire selection of exotic baskets for your shop
or business.
Enter code WAA9996
to get $5.00 off
the retail price of this cataloging program.
Come and Join
in the BasketMakers
Forum. Lots of friendly basketweavers are gathered there. Click
on "Guest"
to enter and read-only or join if you want to post (it's free).
Here is a list of some of the most recent Topics being discussed:
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© 1998-2007
Susi Nuss. All rights reserved.
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