The Liberty Basket — Hand-Embroidered American Flag Straw Tote

Every stripe is a line of thick cotton yarn, laid stitch by stitch across a hand-woven palm basket. Every star is stitched individually.

And they're not identical, which is the first thing to say plainly. This is a hand-embroidered interpretation of the flag, not a printed reproduction. The stars sit where the hand placed them, not on a machine grid, and there aren't fifty of them. If you want a heraldically exact flag, buy a flag. If you want something a person made by hand in a workshop thousands of miles from the country it represents, this is that.

The colours sit against pale natural straw, which is what makes them work. Red and white stripes on a white background look washed out; on sun-dried palm they have something to push against. The blue canton reads deeper than it would on fabric because the yarn is thick and matte rather than woven flat.

How it's made. Doum palm — the wild palm that grows across Morocco — cut, sun-dried until it pales to straw, split into ribbons and woven by hand in a tight herringbone. The handles are braided from the same palm, wrapped and knotted into the rim. Then the flag is embroidered directly into the weave in cotton yarn, which is slow work: the weave pulls every straight line crooked, and stripes are nothing but straight lines.

It's a summer bag with a date attached. Fourth of July parades, Memorial Day cookouts, beach weeks, ballgames, porches. It also works as a plain good-looking straw basket for the rest of the year — the flag is on one side, so turn it around and it's just a basket.

Choose lined or unlined. Unlined is the traditional construction and it breathes — better for damp swimsuits and wet towels. Lined stops small things falling through the weave and stops the palm snagging knitwear. For a beach bag, unlined. For a market or day bag, lined.

Three sizes: small as a summer purse or a child's basket, medium for beach and market, large for towels for two and a cooler's worth of picnic.

Woven and embroidered entirely by hand in Marrakech. The flag falls a little differently on every basket.

Features & Specifications

• Material: Hand-woven doum palm leaf (natural, undyed) with cotton yarn embroidery
• Detail: Hand-embroidered American flag in red, white and blue — a handmade interpretation, not an exact reproduction
• Handles: Braided natural palm, short hand-carry length
• Interior: Choose lined or unlined
• Sizes: Medium
• Handmade: 100% handcrafted in Marrakech, Morocco. Ships direct from our workshop.
• One of a kind: Weave density, exact dimensions, star placement and stripe spacing vary between baskets.
• Care: Keep dry where you can; palm is water-resistant but not waterproof. If it gets wet, air dry naturally away from direct heat. Dust with a dry brush. Spot clean the embroidery gently with a barely damp cloth — do not soak, as red dye is the most likely of any color to run onto pale straw. Store loosely stuffed and out of prolonged direct sun; bright dyes fade faster than natural palm.
• Delivery note: Ships from Morocco. If you need this for a specific date, order well ahead — international delivery plus customs can take longer than you expect.

Expédié de notre entrepôt de Marrakech avec DHL ou FedEx. Livraison gratuite à partir de 100 $ (100 € en Europe). Cinq à huit jours ouvrables vers l'Europe, le Royaume-Uni, les États-Unis et le Canada ; sept à quatorze jours vers l'Australie et la Nouvelle-Zélande. Trente jours pour changer d'avis.

Coupé et cousu à la main dans notre atelier de Marrakech. Chaque peau étant différente, aucune pièce n'est identique.