Ghost nets

Following on from the previous post, one of the inspirations for working with mesh bags was finding out about "ghost nets" - discarded fishing nets that continue to float in the sea, catching fish, turtles and other marine life for no one, simply as pollution destroying marine life.  How careless, how uncaring of our planet's life.   This is a link to a website (http://www.ghostnets.com.au/) that shows how the local indigenous people used these nets to recycle them into art.  Workshops were held in North Queensland to give inspiration to the local people, using experienced fibre artists, such as West Australian Nalda Searles - see this page.

The first mesh basket I made was this one:

basket made from mesh bags 

©Christine Linton

Coiling mesh bags

One of the coiling techniques I wanted to try was coiling mesh bags.  I had tried it once before but didn't really like it because the mesh, being plastic, was so slippery and unpleasant to work with.  So I used a mesh bag with a better feel (still plastic but not so slippery) stitching it with raffia.  I did alternate rows of totally covered bag and open stitching.

Coiling mesh bag stitched with raffia

©Christine Linton

detail of the bag 

©Christine Linton

The result was actually what I wanted - but still, the plastic feel was there, which puts me off continuing in this vein.