Charleston Gullah Sweetgrass Baskets

Marsella Jefferson is a fifth-generation sweetgrass basket weaver from the South Carolina Lowcountry who learned the craft at age eight from her mother, great-great-grandmother, and aunties, continuing a lineage of Gullah Geechee basket making that stretches back centuries. Her 2.5-hour weaving classes in Mount Pleasant teach participants the traditional coiled technique using sweetgrass, pine needles, and palmetto, covering how to split and prepare the materials before progressing to the winding and binding that builds the basket row by row. Participants complete a small traditional basket to take home and leave with a genuine understanding of how this craft encodes the history and knowledge of the Gullah Geechee community.