Last fall, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art had an exhibit called Grassroots: African Origins of American Art. The exhibit held a fantastic display of hand-woven baskets from Africa and described how women in America still make these baskets out of sweetgrass (the virtual exhibit is still up online; for more info, click on the link above).

Between that exhibit and a class I was taking called The Green Museum, I was inspired. I wanted to see if I could try making a coiled basket using up fabric scraps (being green). I couldn't wait until winter break to try it! I insisted on doing the process by hand instead of by machine... and it resulted in a big unraveling mess.

Fortunately, amongst the multitude of crafting supplies I have laying around, I had some yarn. This turned out to be much much easier than my initial attempts with the fabric. It was also a lot more portable. I was able to take it to work and found that it is also a great way to keep the attention of small children on an airplane. I found the tutorial here: Craft Yarn Council website.



The picture above is my first attempt at coil basket making with yarn and clothesline! As you can see, it's a little wonky-shaped but I figure its not bad for a first attempt. If I make any more of these, I'd like to try experimenting with embroidery floss or beads!

I saw it, I made it, you can too!