Raffia basket

Craft School Oz provides popular basket weaving and slow stitching workshops. Learn how to use plants and textiles to create beautiful work. Shop courses and our latest fibre arts book Finding Form with Fibre.

Dye Raffia & Make Baskets immerse yourself in the slow, creative nourishment of mindful handcrafting Let me paint you a picture... You’re curled up in your favourite cosy chair, with a bagful of raffia at your feet, and time flows differently as you joyfully weave a beautiful, unique basket. Are you… If you nodded along...

Raffia is a natural fibre that is perfect for basket weaving; it is strong, holds dye superbly, and is easily malleable. Basketmakers have used raffia since the beginning of time, for its ease of use and aesthetic qualities. It isn’t too hard on your hands, and once woven together (you can use a range of basket making techniques) it has a real 'Wowee' quality about it. It's the bee's knees in my opinion. Raw raffia material (fibre) comes from the Raffia Palm, a species native to tropical…

These round straw/raffia box bags have been floating around since last summer and are still going strong! I was never that bothered about getting one but I was finally swayed by Instagram that it w…

Raffia baskets online workshop. Learn how to make these coiled bottles in our professional developed and informative raffia basket workshop.

When I'm teaching, I'm often asked how much raffia is needed to make a basket. It's a good question, because, I assure you, once you start making your own baskets, you will always want some raffia at the ready!Now, firstly and quite obviously, the amount of raffia you need to make your own basket depends on how big your basket is going to be - I always buy at least 1kg (2.2 lbs) of raffia at a time and dye it myself as coloured raffia can get expensive. Maybe a better question would be, how…

In this blog I talk about dyeing raffia with plant materials to obtain natural subtle colours.