Threads 62: Weave a waste paper basket, using recycled material

This January I am busy weaving baskets for my exhibition in March at the MERA Schoolhouse in McDonalds Corners. The photo shows one using newspaper as a weaver.

In previous experiments with newspaper, I have tried to use newspaper quills both as stakes and weavers. The result was disappointing, and I could not keep the form. So for this basket, I used a wooden base, and number 4 round reed for the stakes. I could easily have used willow for the base and the stakes as an alternative.

After setting the stakes with a firm weave of three rows, I started weaving with the rolled up sheets of the advertising section in the local newspaper. They  used mostly red and yellow, so I dyed  the reed  red and yellow.  I also found it easier to use  single weave over and under two stakes.

There is quite an art to rolling up newspaper, which I don’t think I have really mastered. I did find it quite easy to join the long quills, by inserting, the narrow end into the fatter end, and adding a little white  glue  to hold them in place.

I remember that several years ago, on a trip to Halifax on the via train, I met somebody with a beautiful handmade newspaper basket . She had bought it in the, now obsolete, one hundred  villages store. It was entirely woven with very fine newspaper quills. The sides were decorated with circles of newspaper like medallions. See photos. I wonder if any of the readers have seen these. I would love to have one in the museum.