This basket is made by women in Uganda, many of whom are widows to war or AIDS, living amongst some of the worst poverty in the world. Basket making is their most marketable skill. These baskets combine together traditional weaving skills and beautifully colored grasses using dyes carefully blended to give the colors of spice that are available at the local market.
The interior of the Nubian baskets are desi fiber. The fiber forming the core of each coil is papyrus, around which desi fiber is wrapped; both reeds are found growing in the marshy areas along the banks of the Nile River and Lake Victoria. Artisans start a basket by wrapping a short length of papyrus tightly with the desi fiber and forming a flat circle. With the desi fiber threaded through a needle they pierce the previous coil, catching both the interior core and the outer wrapped layer. They connect it tightly to the current work, adding more papyrus as they go so as to keep the coils a consistent diameter. Continuing in this way and adding different colors of dyed desi to form the pattern, they shape the basket using the meticulous intertwined stitches of this traditional craft. Fair Trade.
