The Rit Dye Company Just Met Ann Mitchell, Basket Maker Extraordinaire

It all began with a TicTok video. Well, just a bit more than that... auntie who taught her niece how to make baskets, who then taught her daughter how to weave baskets at ten years old. She grew up surrounded by basket makers – creative, strong, resilient, and reliant upon themselves yet also sharing their love of making baskets. And as each generation of basket makers grew, so did their creativity by using different colors, new weaves, and new basket tops and TicTok. Yes, TicTok.

Ann Mitchell is well known basket maker whose sweetgrass baskets spring alive with her vibrant colors. She started sharing her basket making process on TicTok, garnering over 5000 viewers at any given time. She used dye for coloring her splints over the years but never thought of contacting any dye company directly. The dye was just another tool to make her baskets.

When Ann started making TicTok videos, she did so with the intention of sharing her craft, explaining the tools she used, the raw materials needed and the steps of making a sweet grass basket. The cost of purchasing dye was minimal compared to purchasing other supplies for making baskets.

Ann had taken a break from making baskets and after a refreshing pause, she started again in early July. She tagged Rit Dye in one of her videos not by design, just by listing the tools she used.

On July 13, Anne posted on Facebook, "OMGGG the Rit fabric dye company just commented on my TikTok video! And they followed my page too!

The next day, the Rit Dye company asked if they could share Ann's video on their page and told Ann they were going to send her a care package.

Ann said, "It's crazy that they know who I am and love my work."

Ann's package arrived on July 21 and Ann made an 'Opening Rit Dye Box' video on – you guessed it on TicTok. By the next day Ann was dying splint with her gifted Rit Dye.

On July 25, Rit Dye wrote Ann a message on TikTok and asked her to make a basket for their Halloween campaign.

Ann said, "I'm not sure what I'm going to make yet, but I have some time to think up something."

Thinking about the entire connection with Rit Dye, Ann said, "It's more about the recognition I think for me. To know that my artwork is reaching so many people and they think it's just as cool as I do. A lot of the people I reach on TikTok don't have any knowledge of baskets at all and they're just kind blown at the whole process, not just the finished price. And even the fact that my video was watched by the people at the Rit Dye company and had an effect on them, that makes me extremely happy. I appreciated them reaching out to me and for sending me my favorite-colored dyes."

We appreciate it too.