Today I have been working with a smaller basket that I’ve initiated using 5mm diameter solid black rubber tubing and yarn as before.
Introducing the thick copper wire as stakes didn’t work here as it was too difficult to pierce the narrower tubing. I intended to alter the process for this new piece anyway, so using primarily the same materials as per the other two vessels, I introduced 0.1mm fine copper wire, extracted from the original 2mm blue electrical wire; the breaking down of material into its components is like a process of distillation, with ever finer material been revealed. [ It mirrors very much what I’ve been doing with natural material such as bramble, splitting it or peeling off the fibres that surround the pith to use for cordage; both processes are time consuming but useful with regard to exploiting all the characteristics of the material.
So instead of stake and strand to progress this piece, I opted to continue with coiling but from the centre point of the vessel, using the blue electrical wire this time as the core material and the fine copper wire in place of yarn. The only drawback I’m finding with using the fine copper wire as stitching material is its tendency to snap where previously there was a kink; this has made this step a little protracted. More care perhaps is required when removing the copper wire or perhaps it could be adopted as a core material if clumped together.
Oonagh Corr 