Teal Lavumisa Basket #2

Hand-Woven  Lavumisa Basket 14”.

This product is made by Swazi Women and facilitated by Gone Rural, a WFTO certified Fair Trade Organization.  The Women harvest the “Lutindzi” grass once a year in February.  The grass is plucked from the sheath leaving the root intact for next year’s growth.  The women dry the grass outside before bundling it and selling it.  The bundles of grass are transformed into beautiful colors in fuel-efficient dye vats and then laid out to dry in rows under the African Sun. 

The artisans start with a small bundle of lukhazi reed; they wrap the dyed lutindzi grass around the lukhazi and start to develop a coil-shaped item. As each circular row gets added, it is stitched from the previous row to the next row using an overlapping technique. The basket shape is made free-hand without the use of a mould. It takes many hours to make one basket.  The basket-making women have unique hand-skills and are exceptionally talented in being able to add their own design input to our specific size, quality and colour way requirements.  These baskets can only be made by the most skilled crafts women, and as such are collector's pieces.