Category: Craft

Twined bag 1

On By CarynIn Craft

I have finished my twined bag. Yes, I was obsessed with making it and spent three days working on it. (Should I have been doing other things? Oh yes, but this was fun.)

I experimented with the weave as I progressed, not only doing stripes, but changing twist direction and number of twists between warp threads to control which color was on top, using this project as sampler.

Photo description: body of a twined bag made with natural jute and hand spun orange and white wool showing different styled stripes

To make the strap, I threaded long strands of jute through the top edge of the bag, then used more hand-spun wool to cover the jute, reversing twine direction on each row, so as not to introduce bias twist in the final strap.

Photo description: starting the strap, with the excess yarn wrapped onto recycled plastic bobbins

I felt the other end of the strap needed some adornment, so I cut a slice of antler and drilled two holes to make a decorative button. It is sewn on, not functional, but I think it came out nice and coordinates well with the natural jute.

Photo description: antler decorative button attached at the other end of the strap.

I finished the bottom end of the bag and the end of the strap with tassels lashed with wool.

Photo description: finished twined shoulder bag made with jute, wool, and antler

I absolutely love this weaving technique. Want to learn more about twining a bag? There is an excellent book called “Twined Bags: A Historic finger weaving craft of the Native Americans” available from Livingston Press, written by Monica Newman Moore.

New card display

On By CarynIn Craft

I have had it in my head for a while to make a new card display for the greeting cards I have for sale at my favorite coffee shop. I wanted something artsy that would show off the cards, but also have a spot for a stack of cards and business cards. I decided the take a block of flame maple from my stash and combine it with some spiral wire card holders.

Photo description: hand made card holder with flame maple base with storage slot carved in and embedded wire spirals for also holding cards

I used a two part epoxy to secure the wires in the holes drilled into the wood, then finished the block with Howard Feed-n-Wax. The feed and wax is my kind of product: it applies easily and dries within 24 hours or less, plus it smells nice.

Photo description: card holder with cards for sale at The Full Cup in Weatherford Texas

The bouquet style display brings the cards up off the table and creates an eye catching arrangement.

Twined bag

On By CarynIn Craft

I have a crafting friend who taught me to twine a bag! I’m borrowing her wood frame, made by her husband, and using jute twine and her hand spun wool. Below is the picture of the progress I made on our crafting morning.

Photo description: wood loom with jute twine and orange hand spun wool twined around the upright poles of the loom with one stripe of natural jute and one stripe of orange finished

The warp is attached with larks head knots to a circle of jute at the top of the frame. Two longer strands are then twined around two hanging threads at a time, with one twist between each pair of warp threads. I love the open ended warp technique; it is so much easier to twine than on a loom where both ends of the warp are fixed in place. I also love twining, but to this point have only made cordage. This is the next step in my twining journey.

Twining is found historically around the world, and this type of twining with the open ended warp was used by Native Americans.

My friend also has a great book called “Twined Bags: A Historic finger weaving craft of the Native Americans” available from Livingston Press, written and signed by Monica Newman Moore. It is a very comprehensive book with instructions on the basic twining as well as tips on patterns.

What a wonderful rabbit hole!

Ambush

On By CarynIn Cats, Craft
Photo description: gray tabby with white face and chest half out of a gray and white fabric covered cat hide

I made this cat hide several years ago when Sophie was mostly an outside cat. I would bring it in when the exterminator came, and one day the cats decided they liked it better inside than outside. It is currently Thor’s favorite place to hide and ambush passersby. The picture above is presented to you today because the cat is just so darn photogenic.

Potholder tips

On By CarynIn Craft

As I’m going through my Pumpkin Spice Friendly Loom cotton loops and weaving potholders, I’ve found a few tricks that help my process flow.

Marking the center peg of the Pro Loom helps reduce counting. I used a metallic Sharpie to mark the 14th pin on all four sides of my loom.

Photo description: Pro sized Friendly Loom marked with a gold pen at the middle peg, black dog looking up at the camera in the backgound

Rather opening and closing the bags every time I need a new color as I weave, I loaded my arm with cotton loops in the order I need. The loops are large bracelet sized and quite comfy to wear. This speeds up weaving time as well, since I’m not fumbling for the next color.

Photo description: Pro loom with warp set with alternating colors of spice and linen colored loops and my arm covered in the same alternating colors for the weft

This is the biggest thing, y’all. I stumbled across a vast repository of potholder weaving patterns. Piglet’s Potholder Patterns has over 600 weaving patterns in very easy to read charts, for free. Piglet Evans and Matthew Simon Cavalletto do a fantastic job with the website and have patterns for a variety of loom sizes as well as blank pattern charts. 600 pattern possibilities, I may have swooned.

Photo description: Pot holder woven with spice and linen colored loops along with the weaving chart from Piglet’s Potholder Patterns called Floating Circle

I love optical illusions and just had to try the Floating Circle pattern, which uses straight lines to trick the brain into seeing a circle. So neat.