Small Round Rush Bowl or Storage Basket – Handmade In Cornwall – 654

Description

A beautifully shaped round bowl, 14cms in diameter and 5cms high, woven with a checkweave central panel, a simple pairing weave in the sides and finished of with a very pretty double track border. Woven from Common Club Rush which grows in low-lying areas of the country – Norfolk and the Somerset Levels – the latter being where I hand-harvest my own rushes alongside a team of fellow basketmakers from across the country. They are then dried in a barn in Devon and stored at my home in Cornwall, ready for weaving into beautiful items. I love the annual tradition of gathering in the harvest – working with what the land gives and meeting up with friends and fellow basketmakers from across the country. Rush is beautiful to weave with – soft and pliable in the hands and has its own delicious aroma. I love nothing better than driving back from Devon with my car packed with the sweet scent of dried rushes – excited by all the next weaving possibilities. Rush weaving is a heritage craft basketry skill, utilising a locally and naturally sustainably growing material, often similar in its uses to straw but with its own ancient and rich history – rush-matting and chair-seating to name only two. Having virtually disappeared in this country, rush weaving is reviving, fitting in perfectly with green living practices as a renewable and sustainable product which will last for many years and has traditionally been handed down from generation to generation.