DIY Veduru Pandiri

I wish you guys a very happy ugadi!! 
Lot of south indian ppl can relate quite a bit with my project today.  మనకి ఉగాది అనగానే గుర్తొచ్చేది పుల్లటి మామిడి కయ, వేప పూత, కోకిల కూత, పసిడి ;బెల్లం, పచ్చటి తోరణం, వెదురు పందిరి (Manaki ugadi anagaane gurthochedi pullati mamidi kaya, vepa pootha, kokila kootha, pasidi bellam, pachati thoranam, veduru pandiri). You must already be feeling nostalgic I believe. Well I can probably help you get a little close to your home. May it be just a festival, or a house warming, or may be a bridal shower or even a wedding. You can make your event truly traditional with this DIY pandiri.
check out the supplies before you start:

• ​8 bundles of basket reed 3/4' width to make 6 by 6 mat - Get here
• Hot glue gun
• Green wood stain - You should be getting MINWAX water based interior stain.
• Shade: Antique Jade
• Lots of patience to weave :p

The below picture shows how you get the reed bundles. I got them from amazon for 11$ each.

Soak the reed in warm water for about half hour before you start cutting and weaving.

 Measure how long you want the mat to be and cut the reed strings in desired lengths. The one ordered from amazon does not come as a single piece. It is precut in different lengths like 4feet, 6, 8 11 and so on. To make the best use of the reed and minimize wastage you can go by multiples of 6 and build a 6 by 6 (may not be exact but close to)mat.
Once you are done cutting the pieces, arrange just 4 reed pieces vertically and just take one reed horizontal and weave going up and down alternate.
​The second weave should go alternate as shown in fig 2 below under section C.

 Once you are done with weaving 4 reeds, now add more vertical and horizontal. You can also add all vertical for 6 feet and weave the horizontal, but we figured adding them by bits was easier.

After 2 days of weaving, this is how my mat looked like.

I had some extra left over pieces and was able to manage a 6 by 7 mat with it. Once the mat is done, hot glue the corner edges to secure the weave. Pardon me for not taking a picture of it.

Now comes the fun part. I got a nice leaf green stain from home depot and started applying it with a waste cloth or just any brush.

And the mat is all set for decor.

My husband had made some creative interlock hangings with waste left over pieces and i have added some bells and some flowers to stick them from ceiling.