Windmill loop strip weave | layers of liquid paperboard, paint

This project became larger than I first intended as I found out a number of different things on the way.

This basket is made with the scraps leftover from stripping Tetrapak (liquid paperboard). The cut scraps are made of plastic coated paper with the carton print and plastic on one side and textured paper on the other. I wanted to try making something that I could paint to see how that looked. I also wanted to try and find a way of achieving curves with Windmill Loop.

First I tried folding the strips to weave with them and the result was a fairly large weave that was thin and floppy and I couldn’t image making anything with it that would be strong. I had various attempts at folding the strips until I hit upon rolling as a way of making the thin strips stronger and more uniform. I used a chopstick as my rolling device and made what I think of as ‘spills’ (or paper straws without any glue). (I looked up ‘paper spills’ that is what they are caled. David Mitchell’s Public Paperfolding History Project has an interesting history of them.) I wasn’t sure if it was possible to weave with these because you have to pull quite firmly to weave them in, but I found that they held up quite well.

Next for figuring out how to make those curves – I had a number of unsatisfactory attempts! I eventually settles on the same method as in this basket where the inner rim was stepped in. It didn’t show in the photos I took, but the 2 curved areas do have an interesting bulging curve and I’m keen to try this out on some more shapes.

Finally, the painting. I was keen to see how stripped Tetrapak carton looked when painted. I used what as I had which is (very old and little used) Brusho – a water-based ink powder – it’s vibrant and drippy and soaked into the paper well, leaving a slight sheen. I did know it would be better to paint before I wove, but I got carried away with the above. I should have picked a lighter colour because there is still a lot of white showing through.

So altogether I explored 4 things – a new material, a new method of making strips for weaving, a new way of making curves and my first painted basket. It’s five if you count researching spills, because I got completely distracted.