Walking Around Bags

This is the story of these woven bags.

Recently, I complete the challenge set forth by The Livestock Conservancy called Shave ‘Em to Save ‘Em (SE2SE). I purchased wool from people who raise sheep listed on the rare and endangered list. The goal is to support those who are raising these sheep and conserving their genetic diversity. If you are interested the program, you can read about it in my previous post.

The yarns are beautiful and vary greatly in texture, softness, color, stretchiness, and thickness. I really don’t like to stockpile yarn, so I have been thinking about things that I could make with these.

I decided to make bags for my siblings, the type of bag that you can wear when you are out walking around to carry or collect things. I didn’t really have more of a plan than that so the design decisions were mostly made as I went along.

Decision #1 – how big? Answer – for no particular reason: about as big as a sheet of paper (8.5″ x 11″).

Decision #2 – double weave tube or flat weave sewn at the edges. I only have 4 shafts on my loom, so choosing a double weave would limit the weave structure to plain weave only. But I do like the seamless look for bags and the pattern would be the same on both sides. Answer – double weave tube.

Decision #3 – balanced weave, warp-faced, weft-faced. I was pretty sure that some of the yarn would not be strong enough for warp. Answer – Weft-faced weave. In this way, I would use strong carpet warp sett at 8 epi (doubled in each slot to accommodate the double weave) and the weft-faced weave would really show off the wool.

Decision #4 – pattern. Since I was limited to a plain weave structure, I could really only use color to create interesting patterns. Fortunately the wool varied greatly in color from one breed to the next, though I did have an abundance of light colors. Answer – on the first bag, I tried several patterns from a book of weft-faced weaves, sticking only to those with a plain weave structure.

Decision #5 – strap. I have an Inkle Loom and pattern book, but again I wasn’t sure the wool would be strong enough for this warp-faced strap type. I could have woven a separate, narrow weft-faced strap but I thought the pattern might compete with the bags. Answer – ultimately I decide to ply several (8) of the yarns together for a rope type strap.

Decision #6 – edges. I knew I wanted to sew the bottom shut and turn down the top edge to finish. I didn’t want to create extra bulk in these areas. Answer – I began and ended the weaving of each bag with a half inch section that was woven with light weight 8/2 cotton.

With those decisions in mind, I started weaving and here are the bags.

Bag 1

The bottom sections is all Black Welch Mountain. The second sections, vertical stripes, is created by alternating throws of Karakul and Shetland. The third section has stripes of Hog Island and Romeldale/CVM. The Hog Island is very yellow and the Romeldale had varying light and dark shades. In the fourth section, the boxes of Black Welsh Mountain on a background of Shetland, are created just like the vertical stripes, only smaller. The Navajo Churro wool is beautiful so I left it in plain sections. The patterned band near the top is another variation of the vertical stripes, the background being dark Black Welsh Mountain and the short columns being the light colored Shetland.

Bag 2

This bag transitions from dark wool to lighter and lighter colors as you move up. The rows are placed based on a mathematical progression called a Fibonacci Series. This arrangement is considered pleasing to the eye.

In the Fibonacci sequence, each number is the sum of the two previous numbers.

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, …

As one color increases, the other decreases.

I created a spreadsheet to keep track of the rows and colors. I could check off the row when it was done and make a note about which shaft I had left off on. This was especially useful since I was weaving double and could not see the underside at all. There are a few mistakes in the treadling and they are all on the back side where I could not see them and fix them. C’est la vie.

Bag 3

This pattern consists of stripes of different breeds separated by 10 rows of Black Welsh Mountain. Because the wool yarn varies in thickness, I wove until the stripe was 1.5″ instead of weaving a certain number of rows. The actual number of rows varied between 20 and 30. This bag shows off the most breeds.

Bag 4

This bag consists of four patterned sections separated by 6 rows of Jacob. The bottom sections is vertical columns with a “jog” halfway up. The second section is dark squares on a light background. The third section is vertical stripes of Hog Island. The fourth section is a sequence of dark rows on a light background that create the look of a chain. Each section is woven on a background of the same light wool, Clun Forest.

Bag 5

This bag is a variation of the Fibonacci sequence stripes. Rather than running from dark to light up the bag, this one runs in smaller sections from dark to light and back again.

Straps

To create the straps I plied together 8 strands of wool. Four different wools, each spun together “S” with Clun Forest, then plied “Z” with each other created a nice size rope. I started with 10 yards of each and by the time I was done plying there were over 8 yards of rope. This was plenty as I was making the straps 52″ long.

To finish the bags, I sewed the bottom shut, attached a strap, turned down the top and used a blanket stitch in the same wool as the top band to finish the edge.

I started with 4 oz of wool for each of the 15 breeds. When I weighed the bags, they were just under 15 oz total. Since part of that is the weight of the rug warp, and none is loom waste, I can estimate how much area I can weave in this way from the remaining wool.

I used 25% of the wool to weave 880 square inches of bag fabric. That means I have about 3500 square inches left that I could weave. If I make a nice plush, double thickness rug, I could make it 36″ x 48″. I think that is what I will do.

I hope you like the bags. As always, your polite and helpful comments are welcome.