The best hand-woven storage baskets for laundry, toys and clutter

The listing is specific where it counts. Hand-woven Ilala palm, three sizes, and they nest inside each other, which means the two you are not using store flat-ish in a cupboard instead of taking up floor space. A set gives you room to put the big one in the lounge and the small one on a shelf, rather than gambling everything on one size.

It sits in the lower-middle of this field on price, below most of the elevenpast sets and a long way below the single hampers from Hertex HAUS and Block & Chisel. Shoppers rate it 4.6 across five ratings, which is modest in number but the strongest combination of score and volume among the woven sets here.

Natural palm has an honest look that suits almost any room. It also means no plastic liner, so it is for dry things: toys, throws, towels, shoes.

The catch. Five ratings is a small sample, and an open weave with no liner is not ideal for damp laundry.

Three nesting baskets, hand-woven natural fibres, sturdy black carry handles. The handles are the real difference from our top pick, and they matter if the basket is going to travel between bedroom and laundry rather than sit still.

Priced within a hair of the top pick, so the choice is mostly about looks. Two shoppers have rated it, both at the top of the scale. That is encouraging rather than conclusive.

The catch. Two ratings is barely a signal, and it costs slightly more than our top pick for much the same thing.

This is canvas, not woven fibre, so it is a different animal to the rest of the shelf. It folds flat when you are not using it and the listing says the inner lining is waterproof, which the natural-fibre baskets cannot offer.

It has the most shopper ratings in the category and the highest score of any candidate with more than a couple: 4.9 from eight. For something that costs a fraction of the woven sets, that is a lot of goodwill.

Buy it for function. A folding canvas hamper in bold grey stripe will never be the thing guests comment on.

The catch. It is one basket, not a set, and canvas sags in a way stiff woven fibre does not.

A lid is the one feature that changes how a laundry basket works day to day. The listing makes the point plainly: clothes stay contained, dust and pets stay out. Nothing else on this shelf at a sensible price does that as directly.

It costs roughly three to four times our top pick, which is a real jump, but still well under the priciest single hampers from Hertex HAUS. Four shoppers have rated it, all at the top of the scale.

If your laundry lives in a bedroom corner rather than behind a door, this is the one.

The catch. Expensive for a laundry basket, and only four ratings to go on.

Start with the measurements, not the photo. A set of three sounds generous until you see that the smallest holds a few face cloths. Decide what the basket must swallow, measure the gap it has to live in, then check the listing against both. Where a maker notes that hand-woven sizes vary, take that seriously and leave yourself a few centimetres.

Decide early whether you need a liner or a lid. Natural palm, seagrass and rattan are for dry storage: blankets, toys, logs, towels that have already dried. Damp washing wants a removable fabric liner or a waterproof canvas lining, which several of the laundry-specific baskets here include. A lid costs more and is worth it only if the basket sits somewhere you see it all day.

Handles earn their keep more than people expect. A basket that moves between rooms needs something to grip, and rope or fabric handles tend to stretch where stitched-in or wooden ones do not. Check whether handles are integrated into the weave or attached, because attachments are the first thing to go.

Treat sets and single baskets as separate purchases. A nesting set is better value per basket and solves several small problems at once. A single large hamper solves one problem properly. Paying designer money for one basket only makes sense if it is going somewhere it will be looked at.