So many different things can be made with raffia that it is just as precious to the little ones as the same amount of gold.
Little baskets made of raffia are dainty and easily made. For example a work basket, a candy basket, or a basket for handkerchiefs, collar buttons, and many things are interesting.
For one of these baskets we need one long piece of rattan, a bunch of raffia and a blunt-pointed needle. Soak the piece of rattan in water until it is soft enough to work with. Wind the end into the smallest possible ring and with the needle full of raffia start in the middle of the ring and sew over and over from left to right until the end is firmly fastened. The next row is brought around at a little distance from the first and the raffia is brought down through the centre, up and once around the coil, thus holding the first coil to the second.
Photograph by Mary G. Huntsman
It is Jolly to Make a Raffia Work Bag
Wind the raffia around the rattan until the coil has been brought half way around the second time, when it is again sewed through the centre. At quarter distance all the way through the basket these joinings are made and they must be made to the right of the one below and joined to the previous row. The joinings form a pattern.
As the basket grows larger the number of joinings increase. New needlefuls of raffia are always started at a joining, the old strand being brought from left to right through the upper part of the joining. The new strands being brought from right to left through two twists of raffia and drawn through so as to leave the short end lying next to the rattan.