At the end of the coiled basket workshop the teacher encouraged us take home some of the leftover cordyline leaves. She also sold us some waxed linen thread.

I decided to try starting a bowl with no plastic disc, and it went okay – a bit untidy but I think I can do better with practise. At first I soaked all the leaves, but I didn’t even use half of them. So I began soaking five at a time, which gave me about an hour’s stitching each evening.

Eventually I ran out of leaves, and this is what I’d made:

Which I’m rather happy about. It’s pretty firm, though there’s a slightly looser band in the base where I must have been a bit wussy about tightening the thread. Not loose enough to compromise the structure, though.

I stopped when I ran out of cordyline, though I couldn’t have made it much larger as I had nearly ran out of the thread. Doing an hour or so gave me a much better idea of how long the method takes – which is much longer than I recall Mum’s cane baskets taking! If I was to make anything bigger I’d have to buy more thread, or use both of the remaining colours I bought on the same basket.

Or try using other materials, like yarn with rags, or wire and old garden hose!