I had been looking forward to this early August workshop for several months – it was rescheduled once – I had originally anticipated taking it back in May. I hadn’t done any weaving for quite some time and was excited for the class.
I wasn’t sure what to expect and how the plastic bags worked into the design. I didn’t realize the plastic bags were visible in the instructor’s demo pieces, because the bags were gray, I thought they were pieces of fabric. I decided I didn’t want the bags to show in my design, which meant I would need to tightly coil all of my yarn around the bags. This of course meant more work and more yarn!
Once I wrapped (lol) my head around the process and had a plan, I felt more comfortable. We began with the center of the bottom of the basket (I don’t know, but hope I can repeat this process at some point in the future) and worked out from there, wrapping the plastic with yarn and fabric and using a yarn needle to secure the stitches.
The process was more intense than I had anticipated and I left the class with not as much finished as I’d hoped. I had also hoped that this might be a simple enough process that I could replicate with my older elementary students. I honestly think this project would fit better with teenagers and up, so there went my hopes of using up all my classroom yarn. lol
Since the basket was more intense than I had figured, I ended putting it in the closet for some time. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get back to it. But last weekend (almost two months to the day), I decided to get it back out. Once I started working on it, I enjoyed the process and just HAD to finish it. I did end up pulling the top half apart and reworking it until I was satisfied. The instructor had shown me how to add handles before we ended our session. I’m pretty pleased with the results and my husband is using the basket to holding some gaming cards. <3
I can’t decide if I want to try to make another one or not, I would like to make a larger, flat, tray-like version. So I guess the answer is maybe, yes???
Instructor’s demo piece
