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

Je Suis Charlie

I could not paint or draw my sympathy for Charlie. But then I figured I could do what I am good at - collect trash and reuse it - and send my message in bottle cap print. The silvery pen tip was made from a turned inside-out milk container.

See blogs
Upcycling
Bobbin lace picture

Bobbin Lace Pictures

Thread Painting

 An old folk technique rediscovered








Brain after an MRI scan
Featured on Street Anatomy 

For my daughter's wedding 4/2026

5'2025

Made for a friend-entomologist as picture frame, 4/2025 

 

 

My granddaughter loves flamingos. 3/2023

My daughter's new dog inspired me already to a chrochet dog, a line art dog and now a bobbin lace dog. 3/2023

Following Ricarda Mau's Marx (see below) 1/2022

Corona 12/2020

Picassos' dove, 10/2020

The Fearless drawn by Picasso. 6/2020

5/2020

4/2020
Found the drawing online. Thank you, unknown author!

 After a long time I was drawn to bobbins again. 3/2020
















2019








2018

Some things do  not want to get finished. Meant for Christmas I finally got it done by Feb. 2017

My father used to dig out the roots of trees he cut, clean them and turn them around for garden decoration. 2016

Weeping heart. A tribute to my late father. The pattern came from the stonemason; source otherwise unknown. Nov. 2015

Following M.C. Escher













Jade dragon








Mexican dragon

My kids; from ultrasonic image and photographs

Easter 2015 came around with the question how to present unity / togetherness of two entities. Here is my solution to the problem.

My version of a tree of life

Green labyrinth Troy Town, Pimpern, Dorset

Medicine men from cave paintings

In 1995, NASA’s Dr. David Noever and his fellow researchers at the Marshall Space Flight Center studied the webs spun by common house spiders (Araneus diadematus) dosed with several drugs, including LSD, marijuana, benzedrine, chloral hydrate and caffeine (Noever, R., J. Cronise, and R. A. Relwani. 1995. Using spider-web patterns to determine toxicity. NASA Tech Briefs 19(4):82. Published in New Scientist April 27, 1995). The more toxic the drug, the less organized the web the spider created. Spiders on Marijuana could spin their webs reasonably well, but appeared to lose concentration half-way through. Spiders given Benzedrine, or speed, were said to have spun their webs “with great gusto, but apparently without much planning, leaving large holes.” Spiders on caffeine were incapable of spinning anything better than a few threads strung together at random. Not surprisingly, spiders given chloral hydrate, an ingredient used in sleeping pills, dozed off before they even got started.

From left to right and down:

Normal web - spider on LSD

Marijuana web - LSD formula

Caffeine formula - Cannabis plant

Caffeine web - Chloral hydrate (sleeping pills) web 

 The ancient Nasca lines of Peru