Introducing: Creative Kit "Two-Storey Garden"

Straw gardens, called sodai in Lithuanian, are one of the most beautiful types of Lithuanian traditional decorative art. The name “straw garden” refers to a lightweight structure that hangs and rotates on a string – it is a symmetrical, geometric-shaped spatial structure strung together from hollow straw. The tradition of tying straw gardens, which is nurtured to this day, was included in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2023. Discover this tradition by making a two-storey garden.

This bilingual creative kit (in Lithuanian and English) contains everything you need to make a 13x18 cm two-storey garden: the required number of straws, a needle, and thread. It also includes a detailed guide and a video tutorial, based on methods of Loreta Lichtarovičienė, a long-time practitioner of this tradition.

This creative kit was created based on the book "Šiaudiniai sodai. Straw gardens", 2024. In this book you will find an overview of the straw garden tradition, along with the unique stories and threading and tying schemes of four practitioners: Zita Kumpelienė, Rasa Družienė, Loreta Lichtarovičienė, and Jurgita Treinytė. There is more for you to discover: cubic and cylindrical straw gardens, a twelve-point star, a sun, a bird, an angel, and a horse.

The creative kit is available at Vilnius Ethnic Culture Centre (Ankštoji g. 3-1, Vilnius) or online at etno.lt. For international shipping, please contact us at uzsakymai@etno.lt.