Archive for March, 2020

Shunklies Bag

Monday, March 2nd, 2020

Shunklies Fibre Studio made up some boxes of 9 mixed sparkly rolags and I couldn’t resist buying them. I had no idea what I was going to do with them but they were just too pretty to resist! :o)

Since each one was so different I decided I wanted to spin a little mini skein from each one. During this process I mentioned to Chris that I’d like an Andean plying tool. I usually use my hand but it’s awkward when doing other things. The available designs on thingiverse weren’t great and so we ended up designing a new one which somehow turned into a ghost :o) This is one of the prototypes being used :o)

Spinning up the rolags was really fun. There was even more sparkle hiding inside than I realised from the outside and they are all so beautiful :o)

I spun them all up, gave them a wash and then admired them for a while.  The numbers are how many wraps I have of each to give me some vague idea of yarn length I had to play with.

After sitting on my side being stroked and enjoyed for a few weeks inspiration suddenly struck… a bag! My new iPad is too big for all my usual bags so I needed a new one and this yarn would surely look awesome woven :o)

Time to make some squares!

The Moon on a Stick mini skein holder proved to be a big time saver again as I had no need to wind tiny balls :o)  Weaving up squares on the pin loom is so quick and satisfying it didn’t take long at all to complete 2 in each colour.  The leftovers clearly wouldn’t make a third square in each colour.  I considered making some mixed colour squares but then realised my bag would need a strap!  Out came the Inkle loom and I bravely warped up using hand spun yarn for the first time.

I used some of the leftover yarn from my Led Zep (which was mostly turned into gloves) to weave with here.  The fluffy yarn with all the sparkly strands made for some rather challenging shed changes as my string heddles were getting fuzzy and argumentative.  Funnily though, I was enjoying the pretty colours so much that I just zoomed through the weaving :o)

Once I had sewn 9 squares together and could pin the strap around the edge I realised I would need to weave another piece for the bottom of the bag rather than wrapping the strap round entirely.  I just used my kids weaving loom and mostly Led Zep yarn with some of the ends of the Shunklies mixed in to help the colours match.  No one is really going to see the bottom anyway ;o)

I hate sewing. Somehow the awesomeness of the yarn spurred me on regardless :o)  From concept to finished bag in just a few evenings of intensive weaving and sewing :o) Yay!

Nikki helped me line it with some very silly kitty covered fabric and now I can take my iPad out of the house in style :o)