People also used related techniques to weave straw mats to sit on and sleep on, and straw rugs for their floors. They wove straw hats to keep the sun off their heads, and they knotted nets to catch fish and small animals and birds. Soon this kind of weaving led to finer weaving which made linen and hemp clothing and blankets.
But even after the invention of cloth, people kept right on using woven baskets and straw or reed mats for a lot of their stuff. Plenty of free material - reeds and tall grasses and straw - was available all over the planet, and anybody could learn to make baskets and mats, even if specialists made better ones. Baskets and mats didn't take long to make, they were useful in thousands of different ways, and they could be made to be beautiful, too.