Friday, July 15, 2011

Working with alternative materials

I've already told you about my old t-shirt rug. This is how far I've gotten on that project:
 
Sadly, the project has reached a halt, because there is no flea markets in Oslo during the summer. And it is okay, really, because when it is this hot, you don't really need a rug anyways, do you? It feels really good under foot though, can't wait 'till it's done.

This is my second project of alternative materials:

A small basket made of silver copper thread (a bit contradictory, I know). The pattern is the traditional granny square, with "even" rounds to make it stand up. I know I told you how I had to learn to hold the hook differently when working on the rug. Well, this one was even harder to do. No technique I've ever seen used would do the trick. It was hard, having to constantly change grip, and even the hook took some damage; some of the paint got scraped off. But, hey, the result isn't to bad, is it? (I haven't finished it off yet, because I'm not entirely sure how to. And I've been to lazy to find out.)

Third and last  of my alternative materials projects is a grocery bag net. Made out of plastic grocery bags. I'm not done with it yet, though. I ran out of plastic bags, because I'm to environmentally friendly always bringing fabric shopping nets. But anyways. I got the inspiration to do this by combining this pattern, with a tutorial I saw about making plarn.(Plastic yarn) 

As you can see the original idea is to use VHS tape for the net. But I don't think I have the heart to destroy a video cassette. I didn't have one handy either. And what sweet irony to make the net out of what is to fill it later. I did use the idea of the hair elastic in the opening. I did learn that I should have cut the bags in narrower strips when using the kind of bags that I used, as they seem to be a bit thicker than in the example.
 I'll make it a little taller.

And now you've also seen how RED my sofa is. I'll edit the pictures if I ever use it as a backdrop again. It's almost painful to look at! :P

No comments:

Post a Comment