RELI: Orange, Purple & Green Stripe Woven Storage Basket
With horizontal stripes of orange, purple, rave green and natural sand, our RELI baskets are a riot of Kenyan colour and craft. Handwoven in three handy sizes, you’ll find one for every home storage need. Use a small woven basket for your make-up and toiletries, jewellery and watches, remote controls, mobile devices and cables, while the medium and large woven baskets make great floor storage for everything from laundry and loo rolls to rugs and blankets, slippers, firewood and children’s toys. These colourful baskets look great on shelves and also make excellent woven planters for all types of houseplants – and we can’t think of a more perfect new home gift.
The craftswomen who produce our RELI woven baskets all learned to weave sisal from their mothers and grandmothers, and work within a small weaving collective in rural Kenya. We visit this group as often as we can, and enjoy a strong bond with the women and their chairlady, Madam Dorcas. Where once these weavers would travel regularly to Nairobi to sell their woven baskets at markets, The Basket Room now places regular orders with them, enabling these women to work safely and more sustainably, from home. As demand for our beautiful baskets increases, this talented group continues to thrive and grow.
Most of these weavers are from farming families who rely on steady rainfall to sustain their families. So when farming slows down, weaving work picks up the slack and provides a reliable, alternative income. Purchasing one of our woven baskets helps us in our pledge to empower rural artisans to support themselves and their families more sustainably, and preserve this rewarding craft for future generations. You can read more about these weavers HERE.
Material: SISAL & BRANDED LEATHER TAB
Dimensions (approx):
If you need a specific size please let us know prior to placing your order.
Please note, as this is a handmade product, dimensions & colour may vary from those shown in the photographs.
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.
