Weave Your Old Maps Together

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Weave Your Old Maps Together

One of the most popular projects on Make: Projects originated on the pages of CRAFT when it was a print magazine: the Woven Map Basket. Weaver Jane Patrick (who was previously editor of Handwoven magazine and is currently creative director for Schacht Spindle Company) wrote a simple how-to for taking old maps, slicing them, and weaving them into baskets. I’m a big fan of old school paper maps, particularly wilderness topo maps, and am thinking this would make a fun gift for my backcountry friends. While I would be remiss to chop up a perfectly good new map, I have no shortage of maps that have taken a beating on many treks, and this would be a great way to creatively recycle them. Of course you can use any paper you like: comics, yearbooks, magazines, etc., as seen in the second shot below. Jane even treated the surface of the basket on the right with melted beeswax for a muted, aged appearance.

16 thoughts on “Weave Your Old Maps Together

  1. Weave Your Old Maps Together | My Daily Feeds says:

    […] Read the full article on MAKE […]

  2. ka1axy says:

    My wife has a small zipper pouch, made from flexible tape measures woven together. Metric vertically, English horizontally. Nice look.

    1. Goli Mohammadi says:

      What a great idea! Does she have pics of it posted anywhere?

      1. ka1axy says:

        She bought it at a surf store (the Boneyard) on Martha’s Vineyard. It looks a lot like this one: http://www.wardrobesupplies.com/products/measuring-tape-zippered-pouch

        1. Goli Mohammadi says:

          So cool looking with all the numbers, and looks easy enough to make!

          1. ka1axy says:

            She’s a math teacher, so it’s appropriate, too!

  3. Scott Messinger says:

    I wonder if you could print out strips in such a way, that when woven together, they recreate a image?

    1. Goli Mohammadi says:

      Neat idea, Scott!

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I'm a word nerd who loves to geek out on how emerging technology affects the lexicon. I was an editor on the first 40 volumes of MAKE, and I love shining light on the incredible makers in our community. In particular, covering art is my passion — after all, art is the first thing most of us ever made. When not fawning over perfect word choices, I can be found on the nearest mountain, looking for untouched powder fields and ideal alpine lakes.

Contact me at snowgoli@gmail.com or via @snowgoli.

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