More Tinkering

Chapter 8 Kohe

Make a useful little basket with the square weave.

This is a super-basic basket called the kohe. Timorese weave it using strips of leaves from the Sago palm. Mana Joana used a kohe to put the seed kernels in when she went to plant corn. She recalls the pride of first learning to weave one for herself in late primary school.

Gather stuff

• 8 strips or more at least 50 cm long

Gather tools

• Stapler
• Paperclips, small
• Marker, pen, or pencil

Tinker

Start with the under-over weave of the placemat you may have made in kindergarten, four horizontal and four vertical.

Timorese grandmas would never start like this. They’d be clutching ...