Class Report

Basketweaving From Scratch With Scraps

Teacher: Juliana Rincon (right), volunteer coordinator at SCRAP DC
Location: SCRAP DC
Documentarian: Sonia Booth
Date:
May 14, 2014

See more photos of this class on Flickr!

What we learned:
You can build functional baskets out of things you have lying around the house! Students brought shopping bags, sparkly coffee bags, office paper, and ribbon, among other detritus. At SCRAP, they found vintage wrapping paper, old maps, and banners from a marathon.

It’s important to start your basket with a sturdy base. Choose the base materials carefully, and ideally you should count your strips of material so that everything lines up well for weaving. After you have a solid base, you can build up the walls by weaving in less-sturdy materials like ribbon.

It may help to have a mold, such as a box that you put in the middle of your weaving project so that you can keep a shape when you begin. Once you’ve established the base, you can remove the box. Clothespins help make things stay in place as you construct.

Jules, the teacher, says there is no “cheating” in this type of art! The basket police do not hover over your shoulder “tsk tsking” when you use tape, a hot glue gun, or other adhesive material to construct your basket. Do what it takes to make it stick together.

Something that looks like a blob of cloth or paper at first can turn into a basket if you work on it long enough. It requires courage and patience to work on a craft for a long time and have it look weak and gross for a while. But build and build, and it will eventually transform into an item for holding things!

For further crafting:
SCRAP has a Meetup group at which you can craft with others, and certainly make baskets if you want to. It is a more-informal setting than a clas,. because everyone brings their own projects. It usually meets on first and third Tuesdays of every month.

SCRAP has piles and piles of inexpensive supplies that might be fun to weave into baskets. They even have spools of old cassette and video tapes for you to incorporate into your art.


Sonia Booth is a museum educator who grew up in the Boston area. She works as a program coordinator at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Before she moved to DC she gave tours of the Boston Massacre site for the Old State House Museum in Massachusetts. As part of the Knowledge Commons DC organizing team, she helps wrangle volunteers, facilitators, and classes. Her favorite fruit is cherimoya.