NAHODHA: Medium Red, Green, Grey and White Sisal Basket
The precious art of basket weaving is passed along the female line in rural Kenya, and each piece in this very special collection of finely woven, colourful baskets is literally one-of-a-kind.
The NAHODHA was hand-woven and hand-dyed in rural Kenya from hand-stripped, hand-rolled sisal grass. Its creator? An incredibly creative and highly skilled craftswoman working within a weaving cooperative in Kenya’s rural Coastal Region. This is a group we’re especially close to, since we have partnered with them since The Basket Room began in 2014.
This red, green, grey and white woven basket is ideal for use on your nightstand or dressing table, kitchen worktop, windowsill or bathroom shelves. Short on space? Position yours in a macrame hanger and hang in your bathroom! The beauty of these colourful striped baskets is that you will keep finding new corners and uses for them as your home evolves. For more basket inspiration, take a look HERE.
Basket weaving is a slow and meticulous craft – a skill passed along the female line in Kenyan families. Sisal grass is stripped using wooden tools and weavers’ feet, and then hand-rolled on the thighs before being hand-dyed in large vats of boiling water.
In purchasing one of these beautiful striped baskets you help us to empower Kenyan women to financially support themselves and their families through the challenging dry seasons. You can meet the weavers who produce these fine weave baskets HERE.
Material: SISAL
Dimensions: 24cm DIA x 24cm H
Please note, as this is a handmade product, dimensions & colour may vary from those shown in the photographs.
FAIR TRADE & HANDMADE IN KENYA
Our journey into sustainable style began in Kenya, and the lion’s share of our woven baskets are Kenyan-made. Whilst every region of Kenya boasts its own rich natural bounty, each cooperative we partner with offers expertise in its own unique form of basketry. Weaving, dyeing and grass-rolling techniques differ across the regions as much as basket shapes, patterns and structures. These precious crafts are woven through the generations within families - passed along continuous thread from mother to daughter - protecting and preserving an art form as old as man.
Vast and colourful, vibrant and bursting with natural beauty and style, our fair trade baskets are as eclectic as their homeland and its people. From sisal grass to doum palm, banana leaf fibres to palm leaf, each weaving cooperative works with what is locally available and only what can be sustainably sourced, to produce beautiful baskets which are 100% Kenyan made, and ethically produced. All cow hide bag tags, straps, and basket labels are made from leather sourced as a by-product of the food industry. Natural dyes come from pounded roots, bark and vegetables of the region, whilst all synthetic dyes are sustainably sourced.
From the Kamba tribe to the camel-herding Ariaal pastoralists of Northern Kenya, you can read more about the lives of the Kenyan weavers we work with - and the wonderful baskets they produce - below.
