“Why do we have a bag of plastic lids?”
“When I was teaching classes, I used them to make spindles and as paint pallets.”
“Can I throw them out?”
“I don’t want to say yes. I put effort into saving them.”
“Remember when you told me to tell you if you said something crazy.”
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I stared at the lids I had dumped onto the dinning room table waiting for inspiration to strike. I had already spent too much time googling various phrases containing words such as ‘plastic’, ‘container’, and ‘lid’. I still felt that the best project I found that utilized such plastic lids was New Life, New Purpose’s bread basket. But I’ve already copied that project. In order to convince myself that I was not a one-trick pony, I had to come up with something new. I could not let the lids beat me!
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I slowly walked along the west wall of the store carefully studying each item. I liked this store, even though I could not really justify spending what they asked for their lovely products. My hand almost unconsciously reached out and caressed the delicate feathers dangling from the fancy dreamcatchers. Wondering from what bird such lovely plumbs were obtained, I flipped over the tag. $140.00 and no information about the bird. All I learned was that I would not be bringing home said feathers. Probably just as well. I had once read that one of the main reason the snowy egret had nearly become extinct was due to the feather trade . . . Fashionable ladies with feathered hats back in the day.
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As far as I can tell from my internet searches, not many people have made dreamcatchers from plastic. I’m pretty pleased with my product.
Step 1: I crochet a doily from plarn. Because doilies are typically made from crochet thread and not yarn, I cut the plastic bag strips thinner than most instructions suggest; about pinky finger thick. I kept my doily smaller than the center of the plastic lid.
Step 2: I removed the center of the plastic lid with a cheap seam ripper I don’t actually use on sewing projects. This leaves the outer ring intact so that I do not have to use tape or some other means to put it back together. Then I stuff and cover the outer part of the lid with plastic bags. That is I fold whole plastic bags into the bend of the outer ring and then wrap cut strips of plastic bag around these. It is important to ‘stuff’ the outer ring. If one just wraps the outer rings with plastic bag strips without using some kind of stuffing, the ring tends to bend in on itself.
Step 3 and 4: It is not difficult not does not take long to create the spider web like part of the dreamcatcher and work in the doily. I found Sea Lemon’s how-to video helpful when learning how to go about this process. Then I cut feather shapes out of the unused center portion of the lid.
Step 5: ‘Feathering’ the plastic feathers. This is by far the most time consuming aspect of this process. It is not hard, but neither did I find it fun. However in the end I do think it adds more artistic appeal to these objects. Basically, I just cut diagonal lines from each side of the feather toward the center.
Step 6: Attach all the feathers. DONE.
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“How many of those have you made now.”
“More than I could ever possibly need.”
“Remember when you told me to tell you if you said something crazy?”
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No pressure, but I have other dreamcatchers I have made using this process for sale in my store for a whole lot less than $140.