Make a basket out of plastic bags!

Step 11: Additional hints and tips:

• a thimble will probably be your best friend through this project. Pushing the needle through the plastic bags can sometimes get tricky.
• if you don't have a thimble, try to vary the fingers you use to push/pull the needle through the braids.
• if you're not excited about the plastic bags, I'm sure braided t-shirts or other fabric would work just as well. I'm thinking about trying that next.
• make sure that you're always pulling the thread tight when building the basket - it'll keep the braids in the right position and keep them from shifting as you add extra layers.
• depending on how tight/loose you pull the braids as you sew, you can create curves in your basket.

Comments

[ivanclopez]

How big could you make your basket?

[jessyratfink]

I would say maybe no bigger around or taller than a foot? The plastic bags aren't super rigid. I think you might wind up with the sides of the basket being a little droopy if it's too big!

[borealcat]

sweet! i might try to make hanging plant baskets out of this

[kalyanJampala]

Great idea, and excellent work jessyratfink

[DreMMoore]

The bags from Giant (grocery store) and Home Depot (home improvement store) in my area are two different shades of brown, so I am going to try to make a "natural" color plastic bag basket. Thanks for the inspiration!

[jobard]

Looks terribly difficult for me. I wish I had the ability for doing it. Great work, though!

[hohum]

thanks for sharing way cool ible. love the coloring

would this work if you made the tall side over a tube for a mold??

about how many hours did it take you to build, I figure if I double the hours, add 20 more I should get it finished

i did a similar technique in making a hat, I bought the strips already braided

[jessyratfink]

I would say it was about 10 hours when I take out all the time I spent screwing up or trying different things - and it was spread over a few days. :)

Doing it over a tube could be tricky - you'd probably need to use a very long needle so you could get it where it needed to be!

[hohum]

Thanks Jessyratfink,

[Scarlettred41816]

Very nice tut!

[jessyratfink]

Thank you!