A Belgian client arrived with a monogram and one condition: it had to be embroidered by hand, and it had to look the same on every bag in the run.
Each piece begins as a doum palm basket, woven on the frame in the traditional way, then fitted with leather handles — a long pair for the shoulder and a short pair for the hand — cut, folded and stitched at our leather bench. The basket then goes to the embroiderer, who sets the initials out by eye and works them freehand in navy cotton thread.
That last step is why most workshops decline monogramming beyond a handful of pieces. A woven surface offers no flat ground and no grid: the ribs run diagonally, they shift as the basket flexes, and a transfer cannot be printed onto straw. The letters have to be judged against the weave itself, stitch by stitch. We keep one embroiderer on a run from the first bag to the last, and that is what holds the letterforms steady across an order.
What this project involved
- Hand-woven doum palm baskets
- Freehand cotton embroidery — monograms, names, logos or wordmarks
- Leather handles, double set, hand-stitched
- The same personalisation repeated consistently across the full run
We produce this as private label: your monogram, your colourway, your labelling, from 50 pieces upwards.
