I took advantage of  a cold, rainy weekend to finish a few projects that have been sitting partly finished for awhile.  I worked at little bits of several projects – some paper shredding preparation for making paper, some needle felting, some cards, and some bits and pieces of this and that.  Another project that had been sitting for awhile was a partly finished basket.  During the summer holidays I do week-long art camps for kids ages 10 through 14.  One of the things I started with them was some paper weaving.  We cut pages out of old novels and cut them into strips going horizontally across each page, so we ended up with strips of about 4 x 10cm.  We folded the strips in half running lengthwise and then folded each end of the length in towards the centre.  We started folding them together into chains and adding to each layer.  Here is a picture of a small section. Here is a closer look:                       Here is a long chain after I added more layers.  The nice thing about this is that even if you forget to add the paper strips in the exact same folding pattern eacg time, the overall effect is not really very different.  Also, I just kept tucking things in differently at first, but gradually found my rhythm and the weaving became easier.           After the layers of weaving were high enough for a nice deep basket, I wove the two sides together.  I did some reinforcing with a hot glue gun so that it stays tight, and looser ends don’t pop out of place.   For now, I have inserted a cardboard bottom that just sits inside, but I may weave a bottom eventually…if my pile of wool doesn’t get too comfortable there in the meantime.  Here are a couple of finished shots of the basket with some of my wool inside.       Thanks for reading.  This week I will be working on some needle felting.  Tune in next week for pictures!