She grew up with basketry from an early age alongside her father Michal Kečkéš. He came from Jelšovce near Nitra from a family where everyone was involved in this craft. When he married in Trávnica, he worked in a farm cooperative and during the winter he made baskets from willow branches at home. The branches were planted in the field and he wove them in a small room next to the kitchen. And so little Margita occasionally tasted the “quality” of the branches as part of her upbringing. But she also had the opportunity to see the beauty of the craft, which left a lasting impression on her.
It was precisely her father’s three baskets that she kept after him that marked the beginning of her active basketry. Once she gave them to brides and her daughter, and when the daughter desired another one, she promised to make it for her. She started to focus more on production after her husband’s death – also for income, but the fundamental motive was a deep-rooted love for the craft. She didn’t learn specific techniques from her father, she just saw him at work. But as she started experimenting with weaving, memories of her father’s words, even whole sentences he used during weaving, gradually became clear to her and helped her improve in various basketry techniques. She often used a bodkin to avoid breaking the branches while she figured out the weaving method.
Today, as she is more active in basketry, she exchanges experiences with other basket makers she meets. She works with peeled and unpeeled branches. She doesn’t cultivate the branches herself, although she tried planting them for a year, they didn’t thrive. She gets them from wild willows growing nearby. Once, there were many willows growing by the River Žitava, but many were uprooted during the banks’ regulation after the flood in 2010. She prepares peeled branches in August and peels them directly at the collection site. What she doesn’t manage to peel on site, she boils at home in a slaughterhouse cauldron and also strips them. She uses unpeeled branches for agricultural baskets, which she used to start with, but according to her, people need them less and less each year. Once, at the request of the parish priest, she even made a wicker monstrance for the local church. She sometimes lacquers baskets made of peeled branches, depending on customer demands, but she has also experimented with oil protection.
She mainly weaves in the winter. She doesn’t go to fairs to sell her products, people know about her and her production usually sells out at home. However, she enjoys presenting basketry to children in nearby schools.