Threads 66 - Our low tech craft!

Do we ‘just’ make Easter egg baskets?

My son has recently introduced me to a very interesting article on basketry in an e-magazine  called  ‘Low tech’. See link: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/basketry/

In this article, we read that basketry was one of the most important crafts at a time that predated the rock and iron age. The materials used were all grown locally and were renewable, so, when no longer useful, they simply rotted away. It is for this reason these  basketry treasures have not survived the centuries of time and cannot be found in the museums of today.

In fact, these materials  were grown and gathered each year almost in preference to food, as they were so important to their lives. Not only did they make baskets as containers, they used basketry for fencing the animals, building their homes with mud and wattle, making hats, bee hives, traps, building bridges and even water containers.

This is in contrast with our modern times, when basketry is important for Easter eggs and household containers. Making baskets has become synonymous with wasting time – “basket-weaving” in the USA is slang for easy courses for students. Basketry allows almost anyone, with little or no money and few tools, to create a large variety of useful goods and art sculptures in a way that is one hundred percent sustainable.

Link to load tech magazine: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/site-map.html

In the next two threads, we will look at two such low tech basketry projects.