After finishing spinning the single, I made a two ply yarn from my hemp sample. I transferred the yarn to my niddy noddy, then tied it in four spots and removed the skein.
The next step is to boil the yarn, which still gives me trepidation. It will happen, but I need to sneak up on it.
My youngest gave me a box of yellow to orange dyed merino wool and I decided to spin it up separately rather than blend it (so many choices with these bundles of colors!)
I like the small bundles of wool because they transport easily; I can walk with the roving loosely around my fiber hand, or I can pop the fiber into a container in my purse so I can spin while waiting.
Every year I make bookmarks for my youngest’s teachers. The teachers love them, and my youngest gets enthused about ideas. This time she wanted herself flying through the sky, so we took her picture laying on a bench, and I Photoshopped her onto a sky with fluffy clouds (since she chose to wear her fluffy cloud sky shirt). But what to do for the tassel? I went digging through my stash, looking for white felt, but instead found some poly batting. I could work with that. To make the clouds, I cut out a oblong of batting, then melted the edges with a candle flame to reinforce the edges and make it more cloud-like.
I attached the “clouds” to the bookmarks with a length of pearlized cotton. For this blog, for safety sake, I blurred out her name and face. The bookmarks that went to the teachers were not blurred!
I found another thing to do with my woven bands: bracelets! I chose to sew leather ends on to reduce bulk, and I had the materials.
I cut a strip of goat leather and stained it dark brown, then sealed it with an acrylic clear coat. I cut two smaller rectangles from the finished leather, cut a length of leather cord, sealed the ends of the woven strip with clear glue, selected a shell button, and sewed using waxed nylon cord.
To form the eyelet for the button hole, I folded the leather cord in half, then bent the ends outward at a 90 degree angle. I secured it to the end of the woven band with waxed cord, then cut off the excess. To cover the end, I cut a slit in one leather rectangle to slide over the eyelet, then sewed the leather to the band. The nylon thread was thicker than I wanted visible, so I separated the three strands and just sewed with one.
My wooden book clamp serves well as a leather stitching aid. I used wax paper to keep the newly finished leather from sticking to the wood. (I recommend waiting 24 hours before sewing, but I was impatient.)
For the button end, I sewed the button offset on the other leather rectangle, using cord scraps to space the button off the leather. If the button is sewn tight to the surface, there isn’t enough room for the eyelet.
I’m pleased with the finished bracelet. Although I would have preferred the leather ends to butt together, the gap actually makes the bracelet more comfortable to wear by giving more flex. The bracelet is easy to button one handed, and is light.
I’ve been pinning many pictures of things I can do with my Inkle loom woven straps. So many things, but what caught my attention this time were wrist straps. Most of the articles talk about attaching keys, but I also saw wrist straps used for walking canes, cameras, and small bags. I also saw a method for securing the end of the cut woven strap with clear flexible glue. I used Modge Podge, which worked well painted on the ends and allowed to dry.
There is metal clamp hardware that make the creation of a wrist strap quicker, but I preferred the sewn leather direction. I noticed that leather makers use a wooden clamp that is similar to my bookbinding clamps. My clamp is larger, but it worked well to hold the pieces together while I stitched. I used a single ply of waxed nylon thread to sew a loop of leather to the ends of the strap.
Rather than a D ring, I used a split ring and a toggle clasp because these can be removed if the strap needs to be modified with different attachments.
I liked how this one came out, so I made more.
Critters and Craft 