Weave a wonder basket!

SMART CRAFT

Here’s one smart idea that’ll do all of the following:

1. Reduce your use of plastic bags. (10 points from the ‘Save the Environment’ brigade.)
2. Impress your craft teacher immensely. (7 points for improving your skills at basket-making.)
3. Make your Mama weak in the knees when you gift it to her (20 points when she shows it off to her friends!)

The only person who might be miffed at this craft project, is the raddi-wallah…because it uses up a lot of old newspaper.
* Open a day’s newspaper, remove 2 double spreads, and fold them up till you have a thin (but strong) strip. Keep doing this till you have  8 such strips
* While you work, you could keep the strips from unfolding, either by placing weights on them, or by cello-taping them.
*  As shown in Fig 3. weave them so that only the centre parts of the strips are used.
*  Run long strips of cello tape along the red lines marked in the picture. This will hold the strips in place for the next stage. Turn over the whole ‘weave’ and run cello-tape on the other side too.
*  Now, make about 5-6 more strips; but this time make them with single double-spread sheets, so that they are not as thick as the first 8 strips you made. Begin at the bottom. Fold the woven strips upwards. Then secure your new strip with cello tape onto the inside of one folded-up strip, and start to ‘weave’ as shown. It might be a good idea to do this with a friend, so that one of you can hold up the strips, and the other one can weave.
*  When the strip gets over, secure it in place with cello tape and begin a new strip from that point. End each row where you began, with cello tape. And begin the next row, from another point, higher up. When you have about three or four rows, stop. Fold the loose ends neatly over (in alternate directions) and secure with cello tape. Your ‘basket’ is now ready!
*  You can add rope to make it a handy carry bag for vegetables. As you weave more, your skills will improve and your bags can get bigger and stronger. You might find that it’s a good idea to plan to include the rope handles right at Step 3 itself.
Go ahead, experiment. Paint the strips in alternating colours to add drama and style to your ‘weave’. You are now an official ‘basket weaver’!!