I’m tremendously privileged – I haven’t gotten sick and my income didn’t completely disappear in the last 12 months – but one of the side effects of having a greatly simplified life is having a little more time and processing power to try stuff. In my case, that’s been tackling some of the Idea Bunny List. What’s that list? It is the never ending, rapidly reproducing, list of ideas I’d like to take a try at but absolutely don’t need to. There’s random crafts, recipes, weird garden hacks, complex programming… all sorts of things.
On there, is finding something that uses the scrap wire my partner generates on his side of the shop. He installs electronics, primarily into vehicles, and all of the parts come with wires. Mostly they’re extras and they come in every colour. He recycles 100s of pounds of this stuff a year. I snagged some to play with and looked up some instructions and videos for simple coil basket making. And then I coiled some bowl-baskets. They’re pretty neat. The smaller is about 6 or 7 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep. The larger is around 12 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep. They’re not lightweight.
Also, plain black, white, and red wire are rare birds since they’re default electrical colours for EVERYTHING. So working out designs without those for contrast is odd. It’s like a giant puzzle. I’m happy I took a try though!