Bassendean Community Craft Workshop II

Miho and I went another craft day on Thursday.  It was really fun and the project we made were dily bags. A dily bag is a bag usually made from woven reeds or grasses and is used for transporting foods such as berries and the like by the traditional Australian Aborigines. I made mine with a red single ply raw natural fibre that felt a little rough in my hands especially seeing as I usually stitch with perle cotton, rayon or silk. The little bag was about credit card size... my niece and I thought we should take it to the river and try to catch some little fish or prawns with it because it looks like a cute little fishing net. 

I was surprised how much fun (and how easy) it was to make.  We made the top by wrapping the thread around the template twice and securing with a knot.  Then it was a simple process if making blanket stitches all the way around the thread line and then continuing with rows around the template stitching into the loops from the previous row. I am not going to master this technique anytime soon but it was certainly an eye opener.