Woven cattail shopper bag

This stylish shopper bag will be your best companion when you go downtown, not only for shopping. You will fall in love with its natural colour which goes well with every outfit. Cattail (also known as bulrush, latin name Typha latifolia, is growing in the lake) is an extraordinary material: waterproof, ultralight, and extremely durable. You can take it with you everywhere! 

The bag is a perfect choice if you love natural and unusual materials. It is definitely one of a kind, woven locally by Polish craftspeople. For possessing cattail, you need to go into the lake and cut the material by hands. Basketry Master Helena cuts every leaf manually and then carefully weaves the bags. She weaves every bag with a heart and with a huge experience.  It's a lot of work, but the effect is splendid, the bag is perfect in general and in details.

In this material, the most difficult is to get it. Years ago cattail used to be obtained for tons in Poland, today no one organizes cattail harvest, only a few people weave of this material (Serfenta cooperates with three of them). In winter, you need to find a pond which is drained and in which a good-quality plant grows – not always is suitable. You have to spend a whole day in the cold and wind, in unpleasant conditions. Go down into the mud, sometimes almost drown – that’s what we know from the story of Helena, who despite her age decided to do it with us!

That is why it is our mutual, huge success this year – ours and the Rogala family. Together, we organized the harvest and acquired the material. See what it looks like. This is a really amazing event in Serfenta.

Each blade is cut by hand with a sickle by Helena and her family. Then the heavy bundles are taken out and transported to the garden, where they season in large stacks until summer. The harvest lasts all day or several days. This is what happened this year, after many years of break on such a scale.

We can offer this bag to you thanks to our long-standing friendships formed during Serfenta’s basketry expeditions. By purchasing it, you support local Polish craft and Basketry Master Helena directly. You can be sure, that by choosing this product, you are supporting local handcraft. 

A vowen cattail hat is a perfet accompany to the shopper bag! 

Material: cattail (bulrush).

The bag is 100% handmade, so the dimensions may vary by 1 or 2 cm.