Net couture

Olive, the doll, made it possible:  here is the latest on potato bag couture. 

Amazingly, the dress looks much prettier in the photograph than in real (or on me…). 

In terms of the craftsmanship I am also not totally satisfied. I fastened the swing parts of the skirt with blue bottle caps and they pull on the light material messing up the flow. But other than that...

Bed, bath and beyond

Every time I visit IKEA, Strauss or any other of those home decoration stores I encounter crocheted or knit storage containers for bath- or bedrooms. One-way nets serve the purpose as well. 

Use the stiff plastic sheet material you get from some potato nets and they will remain upright. This material is good for stitching or patching patterns onto the basket as well. I line them all with colorful fabric left-overs. In these two baskets, right and left, the net is on the outside and used as decoration.

 

In this basket, an intact potato net was double-layered for stability and decorated with fabric on the outside.  The advantage of the more flimsy nets is that they can be put away more easily after use. 

 

Plastic hyperactivity

Fortunately, the supply of (empty) shower gel, bubble bath and washing fluid bottles in an individual household is limited. Healthy restrictions to my current obsession.

Head or tail?

Sometimes I receive material of which not even the donor can tell me what it had been used for. Those one-hit wonders can be particularly inspiring. They sometimes do, and sometimes don’t, end up as something useful. The grey plastic here needed stability, because it was rather flimsy when cut into stripes. Thus, I braided it with cut-up black ladies tights and had just enough to make a base. For what? Big questionmark. As I liked the colors you can chose now between a basket and a hat.

 

The obvious

For weeks I have been moaning and groaning about my inability to find a proper use for undamaged one-way nets. Typically, people rip them open creating the usual plastic mess meant for the trash can. In that situation, I could shine by breathing new life into them. Now, apparently, I have conditioned my suppliers and the nets I receive are perfectly alright. Frustration reigns!

 

Of course, they are usable simply as they are, for instance when shopping in one of those stores where you bring your own containers. A potato net could continue living as a potato net. OK, but boring.

One could use them for storage of all sorts of material which either needs airing (sports shoes…), drying (herbs, tea leaves, plant bulbs…) or which needs to be seen in order not to be forgotten.

I had just concluded that this was the best I could come up with when I more or less tripped over my daughters skating gear.

How obvious! Add some ribbon and some fanciness here and there and get perfectly functional shoe bags, sports bags, and storage bags!

The bubble bath bottle

Now I am really on a roll. The fun comes from the bright colours of the cosmetic plastic ware, their special shapes and the fact that repurposing them generates useful products. With that one I solved my USB-stick storage problem. Thanks to Velcro with fastening.

Talk about coincidence

Tumblr is a network I visit about once or twice a month. I admire other people's ideas and share the upcycling stuff there; so, unless I have something new, I do not log in. Thus, I was quite flabbergasted yesterday seeing my very own work on the title page. That answers my question how they select the front pictures - they don't. They simply run a random generator, because my photograph was neither designed to work as a center piece nor does it do too well in that position. But hey, I was still thrilled of seeing it there!
Tumblr must have a mechanism in place how to sieve out the pictures with aggressive, insulting or otherwise unsuitable content. So, possibly, there is a person for final clearance.

Distracted by shower gel

My favored material, the one-way nets, failed to inspire me lately. One reason is the lack of it - not enough there to dream up anything fancy. The second reason is the fact that the few nets I have are all intact - which is sort of annoying, because I do not want to cut them up for repurposing. So, I stand in my own way in that regard. But then I "saw" some other plastic trash. These shower soap bottles seem to be useful as a shell for may  purposes: protective cases for glasses, external hard discs, mobiles or whatever else comes to mind. I line them on the inside with fabric and attach some decoration for the fun of it.



































 

Old lady's fashion?

My daughter once returned from a trip with one of these snap fasteners as a gift. I went through a whole set of emotions when she presented me with it: Being pleased that she thought of me and even spent money; wondering, why she believed that I needed some of these old-fashioned clasps I would not ever use myself; being thrilled that she considered that I could and would do something with it.
Well, the piece went into my storage cabinet and just came in handy, when I wondered how to proceed with the piece of crocheted one-way nets, and rummaged through my collections in the search for inspiration.
And the best is -  my daughter liked the outcome. She would want different colours for such a clutch, but she would use it.
The lining was made from Indian cotton, by the way. I once had the chance to visit India on business and was taken to a sari shop by my colleagues. All this many-meter-long pieces of fabric, silk and cotton - this was seamstresses heaven!

Just make a rectangle

One should think that it is fairly easy to sew a straight form especially when one is working on a template styrofoam base having the desired size. Not so here - since I combined different types of one-way nets, some of them stretched and pulled and brought in a mind of their own. I consider myself an experienced seamstress, but I ended up struggling to get the second  part at least somewhat similar to the first. Not that I minded - it was fun working on the solution to the problem. The upholstery fabric left-overs I found in a thrift shop were just the inspiration I needed. The shoulder strap's dedication was to be a belt for a dress, but it never made it. They sold them by the bucket load in the same shop.

The round base

There is this "unableness" to sit in front of TV doing nothing. While I quite like using it as a background noise, I have this fixation of generating something worthwhile in parallel. And so it happens that I often start making things without a plan, not to mention a need, for them. Moreover - there is this additional fixation about having to finish things I started. So, I do, one way or the other. And yes, there are the boxes and corners, where I hide my failures...

I have not tired of the material of one-way nets for some years now. It keeps challenging me for a number of reasons like limited supply, different form and shape. Here, I had started with a round base with some residual potato nets, because I did not want to make just another bag - who needs so many bags anyway. I did not want to make just another basket either. The whole uneasiness about not wanting to make something led me to this relative of a basket - yet another bag once it got the hippie girdles I found in a sell-out for handles. And hey, I like it!

Leftover trash from Christmas

Here, the white net they use to wrap up Christmas trees in was knit. I am not sure where it came from, but it still had pine needles stuck in it. Material was scarce, but a bit silvery; so it became a clutch. I like to combine with real leather and matching accessoires to upvalue.

Give-me-your-trash-and-get-a-bag-campaign

During discussions with my daughter and the people who liked my work the idea evolved to invite you to send me used material and I would upcycle it to some unique piece of work.
This benefits both of us: I have fun creating and you may like the product (if you don't - there is no obligation to take it).

This shoulder bag was crocheted and combined with a leather flap, felt strap, lining and matching button.

The bath sponge

Friends and family collect their trash, meaning the raw material, for me, because I keep running out. There is also a group of young students going through the trouble collecting the nets in their dormitory. From them I recently received some lengthy bluish plastic netting nobody could make sense of. The best suggestion was that it could be rolled up to be used in the bathtub as a sponge. This friend had also given me earlier some left-over fabric (from her mother's sofa cushion) which matched the colour of the plastic. So hey, I had blue leather, proper lining and a button to go with it...

A fresh start

Originally, in 2010, when I started this website, I only meant to share the ideas so that people could join in for the greater good. I did not think about true blogging until I listened to a book by a French author describing the going-ons in the life of the owner of a haberdashery store. She blogged about the news in the needle and thread business and people actually read it. So, I figured, I might as well share the stories behind my bags, shoppers and hats, because, in contrast to a commercial product, each and everyone of them has one...
In addition, my artist-daughter Kuckenburg keeps inspiring me. We had a lovely Sunday morning at Münster's Haverkamp photographing my bags'n things.


I am in the process of redesigning my site for larger screens and thus ask for your patience.

Upcycling one-way nets of fruit and produce

We were raised thinking twice about throwing something away. Our father was a master in quitely repurposing everything which crossed his path. This saved money at the time - environmental reasons were not the major concern, but obviously nature won as well. Apart from the love to diy I have inherited this trash eye, as I call it. Some years ago I “saw” the nets they sell fruit and produce in. This material seems to inspire me to make all sorts of things. I mostly do not need them myself, but they are useful (older work here). Here is the workflow for a one-of-a-kind college bag - upgraded with real leather and lining inside.

Another example is the fruit basket made from a metal basket which had seen better days and potato nets plus a pole covered with leather holding it.

Recently, I learned about Alvaro Catalan de Ocon and his PET-lamps and was very impressed. I found them in use in the Mexican Take-out in Hamburg’s train station. The basket seems to match the style well. So, if you look for special free decoration of your restaurant - get in touch!






This bag was made from the stiff nets which can be used like a fabric. The credit for the design goes to a Dutch museum store where felt bags of this theme were on exhibit.

Typography upcycled

Seems, this deserves a post on ist own; it will be extensive once ready (for other upcycled products see Dec. 2012). Having become bored of making bags from one-way nets I followed my daughters idea and sewed letters. She promised to get the typography into professional shape. Until then - here are impressions (the photo on the left is from Kuckenburg).

Lacing & Repurposing

On this page you find two open-end theme blogs started in Dec. 2012. I continuously add finished projects there.

Upcycling one-way nets from fruit and produce.












                                                             Bobbin lace pictures