Tuesday, March 31, 2009
References
Here are a list of the sites that I used to help me make my own movie and blog tutorial for the basket weaving technique, plaiting.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Step Five
You will begin to form a woven box shape with your strips of paper.
As you reach the end of your basket, the strips will likely be uneven. It is okay to cut the strips to an even length, but make sure that there is enough of the strip left over to weave back into your piece.
After your strips are evenly trimmed, begin weaving them back into your piece. This simply means to fold the strip over and repeat your under-over pattern on the inside of the basket. To secure each strip even more, use a hot glue gun. Place a dab of glue onto the back of the strip after you have woven it back in.
You can be creative with this! You can finish with a simple, straight line or you could create a triangular design. Try it all out. Its all how you fold the strips of paper. Experiment!
Step Four
Repeat taping each of the four sides. Once you have a taped diamond shape, carefully place your hand in the middle and flip over so the all of the strips fall down (to resemble a jellyfish) over your hand. Keep your fingers at each of the points of the diamond to reference where the corners of your basket will be.
Start plaiting (or weaving). This step is difficult in the beginning, but it becomes more simple as more plaiting takes place. Make sure that you have lots of tiny tape strips available.
For me, I usually begin by focusing on one side of the square basket. I grab a couple strips and make them form an over-under pattern with each other. Once I have created a small area of that pattern, I take a piece of tape and place it along part of the seam. This will keep it stabilized so that the weave will not come out once you move on to another section.
Once you have worked on one side for a little while, move on to the next. Continue taping the areas that seem organized and are working. The corners are usually an easy place to start. As you make progress with one side, keep moving on to the next. Move the tape pieces farther down as you go.
Step Three
Once you have a tight basket weave, you must reinforce the bottom of your basket. At this time you should cut lots of tiny pieces of tape (about 15 to 20 pieces) and stick them to a handy surface around you.
Find your straight edge. Diagonally place it from the center of one side of your basket weave to the center of the adjoining side. (Here, I have 6 strips on each side of my weave; I will place the ruler at the third strip of 1 side to the 3rd strip of the adjacent side to make a diagonal line.) Essentially, you are creating a diamond inside the square weave. Along this diagonal line, place tape.
Step Two
To start plaiting your basket you must set up your strips in a basket weave, such as the picture above. This will eventually be part of the bottom of your basket.
Place half of your strips side by side vertically on your workspace. With the other half, begin weaving each piece in an under-over pattern horizontally through the strips that you already have set up. This will create the basket weave. Make sure that all of the strips are snug and tightly next to each other.
Step One
To begin, find a material that you would like to weave. It should be flexible enough to move around but should also be able to keep its shape, in other words, somewhat sturdy. Be creative! Find old magazines, posters, yellow pages, thin wood, fabrics!
Next, cut strips of your material. Each strip should be about an inch or half-inch wide. Its fine to fold your strip in half (long ways), as a I did in the picture. For a basket of my height (about 10 inches) cut your strips of paper to be about 2 and a half feet. I used 12 strips of different colored, handmade paper. You can use 8, 10 strips or more; the more you use the wider your basket will be. The longer your strips, the taller your basket will be. Make sure you cut an even amount of strips.
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