About The Baba Tree Basket Company
The Baba Tree Basket Company is an authentic gateway to the finest Bolgatanga market baskets of their kind. We aspire to a new model of ethical business that sees all of us as partners in an unfolding global transformation.
ABOUT THE BABA TREE
Handwoven by name in Bolgatanga, Ghana — The City of Baskets.
For almost twenty-five years, The Baba Tree has woven Bolga baskets, and more recently sculptural basket pendant lampshades, in Bolgatanga, Ghana — a town in the Upper East Region so devoted to weaving it is known as the City of Baskets.
Everything begins with elephant grass and a weaver. Each piece is made by hand by a named weaver, in their own rhythm and flow, so no two are ever quite alike. Every luscious curve is a signature; every small variation, a human decision. We do not smooth those differences away — we hold them up. When a Baba Tree basket or pendant lampshade arrives in your home, it carries the handprint of the person who made it.
In 2026 that mastery was recognised on the world stage. Working with the Spanish designer Álvaro Catalán de Ocón and his PET Lamp project, the Baba Tree Master Weavers received a special mention at the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2026 for Frafra Tapestry, shown at the National Gallery Singapore. It was chosen from more than 5,100 submissions across 133 countries — one of only two special mentions given that year.
The Baba Tree began with a conviction. Founder Gregory MacCarthy first set foot in Ghana in 1999, and a few years later, in 2002, started weaving stories with baskets, certain that good design can change lives.
Almost twenty-five years on, between 180 and 200 weavers bring their skill, wit and colour to every collection. Restless experimentation with pattern and form keeps the work moving forward; nothing is rushed to market, and everything is made to last.
You will find our baskets and pendant lampshades in some of the world's most considered spaces — through partners such as Goodee, AS'ART, ABASK, and the PET Lamp project of Álvaro Catalán de Ocón — and in homes, studios and boutique hotels around the world. Alongside our own collections, we collaborate with interior designers, architects, galleries and hoteliers on new designs and colourways.
This is the oldest form of making, carried forward with new eyes. Handwoven, one-of-a-kind, and impossible to imitate.
Welcome to The Baba Tree.
Woven Into Every Basket
Care For The Land
We are creating a vibrant eco-space for future generations through regenerative agriculture, harvesting rainwater, and growing our own food.
Care For The People
We provide comprehensive support for our weavers, funding their medical expenses whilst providing fair wages and commission.
Care For The Planet
We are committed to building a sustainable future by offsetting our negative impact on the planet, and introducing carbon-neutral shipping.
About Our Founder
The Baba Tree Basket Company’s founder, Gregory ‘Ayinedollah’ MacCarthy has been travelling to and living in Ghana since winter 1999.
Gregory first went to Ghana to study cultural drumming with the Ga tribe, who are based in the Greater Accra Region. After months of sweating it out over a drum, he had some extra brass in his pocket when it came time to leave. He had the quaint idea that buying some beads and cloth, with his surprising surplus of cash, and reselling them in Canada, would be a marvellous way of underwriting his drum studies. That was the illustrious start of The Baba Tree's (formerly known as the dubiously named Swingpad International Imports) tenure in Bolgatanga.
Gregory is behind most of the designs and colour designs.
The Baba Tree's world headquarters are based in Bolgatanga in Ghana's Upper East Region, where Gregory is surrounded by a beloved team of weavers and employees, many of whom he has worked with for years, who suffer his presence daily. His daughter, Precious, works in the social media office.
A great deal of what The Baba Tree earns goes back into the land. Gregory has poured serious money into regenerating our new land — capturing rainwater, growing food, building soil, and planting for the years ahead. It is slow, stubborn work, and it is where much of his heart, and much of the company's money, has gone.
None of it happens alone...
The Baba Tree runs on its people — the weavers and crew who butter our bread, and whose bread we butter, and fill the compound with their groove, sweat and excellence.
Cutting through Gregory's delusional nature with searing effect is the vision that everyone who joins him on this undulating apple cart called The Baba Tree must benefit, if they allow it, by walking away with great product, abundance, an open heart, and hope.
He prays for this every day.
He is still a hopeless drummer.
