I used garden wire as a warp – the green stuff, plastic coated.  It was quick to warp on  6 epi.  I wove in double weave to make a tube and used lots of different strips of plastic.  Green, transparent green, white, yellow.  It sort of matched some of my art work.  Of course it was flat and looked more like a squashed caterpillar but it would TRANSFORM magically once released from the loom (aka chryslis).

Well………  3 hours of work later…. it did not look at all caterpillar like.  I can hardly bear to post a photo of it.  Should I ? 

Even my husband was lost for words (and that doesn’t often happen).  I don’t think I have ever woven anything un inspiring before.

I didn’t give up. A lot of time and energy had gone into getting the PVC, I couldn’t just give up on it.  I tried warping up on my 8 shaft table loom.  I used polypropolene garden string as warp.  It comes in lots of different colPVC Weavingours and isn’t slipperly, knots well.  I chose yellow and blue and warped it in stripes. 

It wasn’t as bad a disaster.  It was colourful.  It was PVC.  It looked a bit like plastic deck chair covers.  I persevered for a while.  Honeycomb weave didn’t work particularly well – I think I would need more shafts to make it look 3D with PVC.  Basket weave looked OK. 

I looked at it critically.  Did I want to spend 4 more months trying to make something look OK, when it was only looking fairly mediocre at the moment (with rose-tinted glasses on).?  Did I want to be a PVC Recycling Hero ?  No.  Why not do something that straight away looks quite good and with some more work and inspiration could look fab.  Well, I tried…….. Do I get environmental brownie points for trying ?

But not to worry….. I have inspiration for a new project……..