Weaving with recycled materials

This week we are featuring a home made weaving loom for the kids, and I thought it would be nice to incorporate a weaving project for the grown ups as well.

 

creativejewishmom.com

Thanks to creative Jewish mom for her clever idea in using empty plastic containers for this weaving project.

YOU WILL NEED:

Empty container such as used for bleach or floor cleaner
Colourful wool - the thicker the better, but a variety of thicknesses is good too
Sharp scissors
Masking tape

 

CONTINUES BELOW

 

 

HERE'S HOW:

1. With a kitchen knife, cut the top off your bottle. Thoroughly wash out the piece you'll be using. Trim the remaining container to the desired height with scissors.

2. Wrap a piece of masking tape around the top circumference, and mark off even increments of about 2 cm , or just a bit larger, on the tape. Make sure that you'll have an odd number of pieces so that the over and under process will work out at the end of the round!

3. Place another piece of tape around the bottom of the basket as a guide for where to stop cutting.

4. Cut slits in your basket all the way around, making sure not to cut beyond the bottom guide.

5. Tie a piece of wool to one of the pieces from the inside. Start weaving!

6. Make a felt sleeve using a sewing machine and two colours of felt. You could also quite simply glue fabric or felt to the edge to conceal it. Or glue a piece of fabric to the bottom and sides, and then cover the rim with a felt or ribbon edge that covers both the inside and outside rim.

If you still have some wool leftover, here's another quick and easy project that uses smaller plastic bottles cut into sections: make napkin rings from pieces of plastic bottles that you've wrapped with wool. So fun and colourful - perfect for any casual table setting, since you can pick wool colours that work with your scheme and have fun!