Woven Basket - Blue Jeans Recycled

I have lately been exploring and pushing the boundaries for my woven / plaited baskets that I have been making for years and lately been selling in my shop SewDanish - Scandinavian Textile Art . In December I taught a basket weaving workshop using this traditional Scandinavian diagonal weaving technique. It was a great workshop, a lot of fun and most of my students left with a finished basket. It is a great pleasure passing on this old  basket weaving technique. It is so important to keep these traditional skills a live, so that they are not forgotten.

For a long while I have been weaving the baskets using recycled Danish newspapers. I love creating something so useful and unique from a humble newspaper and as an added bonus I can have little read while preparing the strips. 

While preparing for the above mentioned basket weaving workshop I was given a pair of totally well loved  blue jeans by a friend who knows, that I can pretty much find use for anything in my work. Having been cutting and preparing an endless number of strips, I instantly saw the trouser legs cut into strips and woven.  

                          

It was fun weaving the basket as the strips kind of took on an organic way of life adding a lovely relaxed look to this rustic basket. To stiffen the basket, making it less fabric like and firm to the touch, I decided to paint the basket with diluted acrylic paint.