Weaving with Angela and Naomi Pisciotta: They are a mother and daughter team from emuly the Gathering emu. Their mob are the Wiradjuri, Yorta Yorta and Kamilaroi peoples and they are are grateful to the Ngunnawal family and proud to call Canberra home.Angela says “To learn weaving is to learn our culture, as it is a practical and meaningful art, a tradition passed on from our ancestors and with our contemporary flavors added to the mix it is one way of how we can keeping the song lines echoing.”Angela was very much honored to rediscover traditional coiled basketry with sisters Haley and Ally attending at her Strong Women’s group at West Belconnen Child and Family Centre Kippax. “Immediately the weaving picked me up and I was excited to have another connection with my culture as we sat around having a yarn about what it would’ve been like for our women back in the day’’. Although Angela has tried other styles of weaving she chooses to stay true to the coil button hole stitch, as she tells us it’s in her “DNA”.Naomi started her weaving lessons at home with her mother Angela and has also done some weaving classes with The Koori Girls Group at West Belconnen Child and Family Centre Kippax which included the paper plate weaving. Naomi plays a fun and youthful role for team emuly as she is eager to learn and gives good work ethics. Naomi is a caring, and gentle natured soul she continues to shine with new adventures along the way.Naomi would like to share her gift of weaving and demonstrate a small paper plate basket for beginners that could be practiced at home for reconciliation week. She has done one to represent the Aboriginal people and another for our Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters.The Aboriginal Flag done with a traditional coil basket weaving is by Angela.You may have to compromise or use alternative colours, materials and other fibres, that’s ok. “Keep Calm and weave on’’. You can also add natural materials from around your garden into the weaving process, such as feathers, gumnuts, leaves and bark (including soft bark).It is a good skill to have for a creative mind and a happy spirit, it is alsoan honor to teach.So, let’s get creative, gather your materials and begin your weaving journey.

Paper Plate Basket for Beginners

1. Find a paper plate or cut a circle out of cardboard. Draw a circle in the middle of the plate as shown in the picture. Using a ruler and pencil divide the plate into even sections, make sure there is an odd number of spokes. Cut each line up to the circle (these become the spokes).

2. If you have paint available, paint the paper plate. While paint is still wet place in the middle a picture of your choice. If need be, glue is also fine. You can also colour your plate using pencils, crayons or textas.

3.Place strand of raffia or yarn to the inside centre of the plate. If need be you can tape it in place. If you don’t have raffia or yarn you can use wool, string, ribbon or anything you can find at home.

4. Begin weaving the raffia in and out of the cardboard panels. As you weave, you will form the walls of the basket.

5.Continue to weave the walls of the basket, changing colours when needed, until you reach the top. Then tie off the end or use tape to stick it in place.

6.Trim and tuck in any loose ends to tidy up your basket. You may like to embellish weaving with gumnuts and feathers

Traditional Coil Basket Weaving

Step 1: Take a bunch of raffia, or your choice or yarn (around 15 metres or so). This is called the core and also forms the tail. The core is the middle of the basket and the point from which you wrap the raffia. To begin the process of weaving, you will need to do a blanket stitch.

Step 2: To make a blanket stitch, take an extra strand of raffia (weaving strand) and wrap it around the end of the core so that it forms a circle. Make sure that there is enough room in the circle to pull the raffia through for the stitches.

Then use a wool needle, threaded with the raffia or yarn (that is part of the core), to pull a raffia strand through the circle, over, under and back through the new loop you have created with the raffia (the weaving stitch).

These stitches create the weaving loops (pictured), which looks like a Torres Strait Islander headdress, through which you can thread the raffia.

Continue this process of threading over, under and back through the new loops that you create with each stitch.

This is the blanket stitch.

Step 3: After around ten or so stiches, fold the stitches and bend, curve and stitch by threading the weaving strand.

Step 4: Continue to use the blanket stitch by coiling the raffia around in a circle – this is turning the tail. Using the wool needle, pull the raffia threads through the loops of the blanket stitches on the already wrapped raffia.

Other materials and fibres can be used in stitching and wrapping, such as dried grasses.

This should get people on their way with their basket weaving journey. You can add your own creativity and flavour to the process!