An Old Fashioned May Day Celebration

Posted On May 7, 2014

Back in the Olden Days before we had Social Media and texting to reach out and touch people, there was the charming old tradition of showing your interest or affection to others by gifting them with a hand -made May Basket.
 
An interested party would make a basket, put a little bit of candy or a small gift inside, and then hang it on the door of the recipient. Then they’d knock or ring, and skedaddle away…. But not so fast or so far that the basket recipient couldn’t catch up with the giver and reward them with a kiss!
 

To help to revive interest in this sweet old custom, two May Basket workshops were held in Perth-Andover at the end of April.
 

The first workshop, on April 26th, was held at the public library. Maj Gagnon showed over 20 participants how to fold colourful tissue paper and make the cuts to create a bouquet of beautiful and one of a kind May Baskets. Maj is an extraordinary artist of many talents, as well as being one of our wonderful librarians! She explained that the technique to the cutting in these tissue May Baskets is the same that is employed in making paper snowflakes.
 

You fold up your paper like an accordion, make your cut-outs, and then Voila! You carefully unfold your creation to reveal your unique May Basket!
 

On April 30th Pam McPhail hosted another workshop at the Perth-Andover Arts & Crafts Centre on Perth Main Street. 10 people showed up to take part in the class, and the cool thing about this class was that this was the first time any of the participants had ever visited the Arts & Crafts Centre.
 

A good time was had by all of these workshop participants, and they all additionally found cool hand-made gifts from among the many locally crafted hand- made items on display in this nifty little store.
 

They learned a new skill, made some beautiful May Baskets of their own, and discovered a shop where the work of over 30 local artisans is on display!