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Handicrafts are made all over the world and there is a wide range of traditional and more modern handicrafts made with great skill and creativity.

What is your favorite type of handicraft? Which handicrafts do they make in your country? Which is the most popular?

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What exactly are handicrafts?

Handicrafts are items that are usually made by hand using simple tools. They are often made for practical reasons because they are useful, but they are also used for decoration.

There are hundreds of different types of handicraft. They include weaving, rug-making, knitting, glassblowing, making clothes, woodcarving, and many, many more. Have you ever made a handicraft?

How long have people been making handicrafts?

For a very long time! Our ancestors in the Paleolithic period—2.5 million years ago—made jewelry from eggshells and bone.

They also made clothes from animal skins, as well as making baskets, paints, and dyes.

Let’s look at some famous examples of handicrafts from different parts of the world.

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Weaving Weaving is an ancient handicraft that was practiced by a lot of the great early civilizations on Earth. In ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Minerva invented weaving. She even turned a girl into a spider for saying she was a better weaver than her!

Weaving is a technique for making fabrics and cloths, but it is also used to make other handicrafts like baskets, rugs, and mats. It involves crossing threads under and over each other. There are vertical threads and horizontal threads. The vertical threads are known as the warp and the set of horizontal threads are known as the weft. Weaving can be done by hand or by machine. Machines used for weaving are called looms.

Looms were originally made from wood.

Nowadays, weaving is a mechanical process and the looms are made of metal and other materials, but some people still weave by hand.

Silk Weaving in China

These are silkworm cocoons.

Silk weaving is one of China’s greatest inventions. Silk comes from a natural protein fiber made by a silkworm.

The silk threads are taken from boiled silkworm cocoons and the fiber is made into textiles.

Legend says that silk weaving was invented by Lei Tzu, the wife of the Emperor Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor, about 4,000 years ago! The legend says that Lei Tzu was drinking tea and a silkworm cocoon fell into her cup.

The heat from the tea unwrapped the silk and there was so much silk that it covered the whole garden.

When the silk ran out, Lei Tzu discovered that a silkworm had made the silk. She also discovered that silkworms ate mulberry tree leaves. Lei Tzu asked the Yellow Emperor to plant her a garden of mulberry trees so she could have more silk. Today, China is still the world’s leading producer of silk!

And this is a silkworm!

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Pottery Pottery is made from a type of earth called clay. Clay comes from the ground and is found in areas where there were once streams or rivers. It is made up of minerals and organic material from plants and animals.

People used their hands at first to make things like jugs and bowls from clay (and they still do), and then they began to use potter’s wheels, which were first developed in Mesopotamia—modern Iraq and Syria.

After a piece of pottery has been formed by hand or by wheel it has to be fired. This means it is put into a very hot oven called a kiln. When the clay is heated, it undergoes a chemical reaction and becomes harder—it doesn’t go back to being clay when it comes into contact with water.

A stone potter's wheel found in Iraq was dated to 3,129 BCE, but pieces of pottery made by wheels found in the same area are even older.

Egyptian Pottery The Egyptians were one of the first cultures to create pottery. Their civilization was based on farming and experts think that they made pottery as a way to store grains and food. They also used pottery to hold water and for cooking.

The Egyptians made pottery with special designs to put in tombs.

By BCE 3,500, Egyptian pottery artists began to add images that showed animals and the activities that they did, such as sailing in boats, to their pottery. Egyptian pottery was often created for the pharaoh, but normal people also used pottery to make children’s toys including dolls, toy ships, and board games.

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Embroidery Embroidery is the art of decorating fabric with a needle and thread.

The oldest examples of handmade embroidery are from ancient Egypt, Persia, China, India, Russia, and England. Each country had its own style, which was based on its culture, history, and traditions.

Chinese embroidery dates back to BCE 3,500 and it’s still practiced today! Some ancient cultures that date back to BCE 6,000 stitched beads and shells into animal hides for decoration.

Glass Blowing Glassblowing is a technique that is used to inflate molten glass (glass that is super hot) into a bubble using a blowpipe (or blow tube). Glassblowing has been around since the Roman Empire and the techniques haven’t changed at all. A person who blows glass is called a glassblower or gaffer. The glassblower manipulates the glass with a torch and can make amazing shapes from it.

Dale Chihuly Dale Chihuly is one of the most famous glass artists. Rather than making small glass sculptures, he makes huge ones that are often exhibited outdoors.

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Alebrijes Alebrijes are brightly-colored sculptures of fantastical creatures.

Pedro Linares made the first alebrijes in Mexico City. In the 1930s, Linares was very ill. While he was in bed, he dreamed of a strange place, which looked like a forest. He saw trees, animals, rocks, and clouds that turned into strange animals. He saw a donkey with butterfly wings and a rooster with horns. All of them were shouting one word, “Alebrijes”.

When he got better he began to make the animals from cardboard and papiermâché. And he called them alebrijes.

Oaxacan Woodcarving Alebrijes are now more associated with Oaxaca than Mexico City. Oaxaca is a city in the south of Mexico. Manuel Jimenez, a wood carver from Arrazola, Oaxaca established the art of making alebrijes there. Other carvers from the area developed their own style, too. Over the years, Oaxacan woodcarving has become one of the most popular styles of Mexican folk art.

Oaxacan artisans carve animals with machetes and knives and then paint them with bright colors. The figures they make range from dragons to armadillos, from mermaids to devils, and from animals with the faces of humans to humans with the faces of animals!

Conclusion Handicrafts are a direct link to our past and our history. They are an essential part of our cultural heritage and it is important to keep them alive.

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Worksheet 10 Handicrafts 1 Read the title and subtitles. Look at the pictures. Then, write everything you know about handicrafts in the ‘What I know’ column. Next, write some things you would like to learn about handicrafts in the second column.

What I Know

What I Want to Know

What I Learned

2 Read the text. Then, write down what you learned in the third column.

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3 Read the text again. Answer the questions.

1. What is a handicraft?

2. How long have humans been making handicrafts?

3. Explain how to weave.

4. Why do we make pottery?

5. What is your favorite handicraft, and why?

4 Draw your own alebrije and then describe it.

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