The Sweetheart Basket — Hand-Crocheted Heart Moroccan Tote

Six hearts, alternating red and pink, crocheted one at a time in chunky wool and stitched onto the weave by hand.

They sit proud of the basket by a few millimetres and they're deliberately not identical — one leans slightly, another sits a touch fuller, the lobes are a little uneven. Anyone who has crocheted a heart knows they come out with their own personality however carefully you count the stitches. A machine would give you six identical hearts and the basket would be worse for it.

The wool is soft and slightly fuzzy against the dry, papery palm underneath, and that contrast is most of the charm. Everything else is left alone: natural straw handles, natural rim, no colour-matching. With red and pink alternating, adding a third colour would have been a mistake, and whoever made this decision knew it.

Underneath is a proper Moroccan market basket — doum palm, the wild palm that grows across the country, cut and sun-dried until it pales to straw, split into ribbons and woven by hand in a tight herringbone.

A word on what this is for. It's an obvious Valentine's gift and we won't pretend otherwise. But the reason we like it is what happens on the 15th of February: unlike a bouquet or a box of chocolates, it's still there, and it's a basket, so it carries on being useful. Beach bag in July. Market basket in September. Toys in the corner of a room. Bread on a table. Hearts aren't only a February thing, and neither is this.

The handles are short — hand or crook-of-the-elbow carry, the traditional market-basket way, not a shoulder bag.

Three sizes: small as a summer purse, a child's first proper basket, or a gift basket to fill; medium for beach days and market mornings; large for towels for two or a full shop.

Open at the top and unlined, the traditional construction — it airs out rather than staying damp.

Woven and crocheted entirely by hand in Marrakech, so heart placement, size and the exact shade of the wool vary from basket to basket.

Features & Specifications

• Material: Hand-woven doum palm straw (natural, undyed) with hand-crocheted wool hearts
• Detail: Six crocheted hearts in alternating red and pink, applied by hand
• Handles: Natural straw, short hand-carry length; natural undecorated rim
• Sizes: Small, Medium and Large (exact dimensions per size — see note below)
• Closure: Open top, unlined — traditional construction
• Handmade: 100% handcrafted in Marrakech, Morocco. Ships directly from our workshop.
• One of a kind: Weave density, exact dimensions, heart placement and shape all vary between baskets. No two are alike.
• Care: Keep dry where you can; palm straw is naturally water-resistant but not waterproof. If it gets wet, air dry naturally away from direct heat. Dust the straw with a dry brush. Spot clean the wool hearts gently with a barely damp cloth — do not soak, as red dyes are the most likely of any colour to run onto pale straw.
• A note on wool: Chunky wool can pill or catch slightly with heavy handling. Trim any loose fibre with scissors rather than pulling it.

Ships from Marrakech. Three to five days with DHL or FedEx. Thirty days to change your mind.

Cut and stitched by hand in our Marrakech workshop. Because every hide is different, no two pieces are identical.