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. 

Recycled Bits

I think our computer chair has a special sticky coating on the seat. Somehow I've been stuck to that chair all morning and most of the afternoon. The chair just didn't want to release me. Strange.... :-)

At least I have gotten a lot done, so it hasn't been a total waste of time. I've been preparing new listings for SewDanish. Lately I have been experimenting with making ACEO's (artist, cards, editions, originals). I know, that I'm totally behind the powercurb and that people collecting ACEO's probably have move on to something new. Please tell me if thats the case, so I won't miss the boat again. Never the less I have had a blast making these ACEO's. When ever I trim something from a project, have left over surface decorated papers/fabrics or my layered backgrounds, then I save them in my big goody bag. I just love having a good rummage in that bag. It bring bags memories from all these projects, that I have made at one time or another. I very rarely toss any of these small scraps, because you never know when they will come in handy. And why start all over, when you already have all these interesting bits laying around, craving to be used in something. I like having my own little recycle center in my studio. A very dear non sewing friend of mine thought I had lost my marbels when she discovered that I was saving all my sewing machine thread ends in an empty tissue cardboard box. I'm not quite sure that she ever understood, when I tried to explain, why I was saving them. Ah well, her loss :-)

Exhibition Quilt

I have been working on a quilt today. It is a quilt for our next exhibition. We are all making a 18 x 42 inches quilt on the theme of "Inside Out" to be hung in the entrance room of the exhibition area, to create a cohesive visual focal point.
I have a master plan for my quilt, but having said that, I'm taking it step by step, not to mess things up, so to speak. So far I have made a long panel with attached images. The images are transferred on to fabric from a mono print that was made as part of my design work. Four images slightly off set on an old recycled damask table cloth, quite densely quilted in long free motion parallel'ish lines. I love using the old table cloth that are beyond rescue because of too many stains. I find them in thrift/charity shops or flea markets/car boot sales. They are so soft. Dye beautiful, and I like the thought of re purposing them, giving them a new lease of life. A long side my main piece I've made three small quilts, trial and error pieces to experiment on. After having finished quilting the panel and the three smaller pieces, I took a deep breath, went and got my emulsion/latex paint from the garage. Diluted and slightly coloured the paint and painted the quilted trial pieces lightly..... It looks great. Tomorrow I'll paint the main piece :-)