Weaving with mail satchels : The Remnant Bag

'The Remnant Bag'
‘The Remnant Bag’

The ‘fabric’ for this bag was woven with strips of plastic for mail satchels.

It was woven on the same warp as the first bag that I made using plastic wrappers for Plastic Free July, last year.  That bag has been carrying home my shopping each week as is holding up well.  It’s quirkiness still gets a few questions at the check-out and often a few surprised looks when I point out the different product wrappers in the weave.

Continue reading “Weaving with mail satchels : The Remnant Bag”

Plastic-free July: Weaving with soft-plastic wrappers

I wouldn’t call this shopping bag a thing of beauty, but it makes a statement in it’s own way.

Plastic-free July

This month, I’ve signed up to Plastic Free July, aimed at reducing single-use plastics.

    • Most of the simple things I’m already doing so my challenge is to:
  • reduce usage of tetra-pacs: We’d use 5/week for soy and lactose free milk.
  • make beeswax wraps as an alternative to cling wrap
  • make shopping bags from soft plastic packaging waste

Continue reading “Plastic-free July: Weaving with soft-plastic wrappers”

That hand-knitted jumper is finished

Just wanted to say a big thank-you to those who left comments when I asked for advice on the best style for my hand-knit jumper (A knitwear design experiment). I finished it a couple of weeks ago and am loving it. Continue reading “That hand-knitted jumper is finished”

Handwoven: Veggie basket from garden prunings

How cool is this? A lovely handwoven basket made from prunings from the garden. Just perfect for harvesting the vegies. The idea for the basket came from a recent episode of Gardening Australia (fact sheet and video here).  Making the basket is fairly easy, although a bit time consuming. The shape of this one is quite broad and perfect for harvesting vegies and fruit.  Finished dimensions for the base is 60cm x 35cm and 20cm deep Continue reading “Handwoven: Veggie basket from garden prunings”

Basketweaving

Had a wonderful day yesterday learning to weave a basket with Lomandra. Many thanks to Cassie Leatham for sharing her traditional techniques and infectious passion for weaving. It was a fantastic day and I’ve already started making the string for when she returns to teach us string bag making. Continue reading “Basketweaving”

Handwoven Bomber jacket : design musings

When Lyndle left a comment on my recent weaving post asking how long it took, it spurred me into action on planning my bomber jacket. I generally have something on the loom, and I weave whenever I feel like it. Sometimes for half an hour; sometimes for 4 hours. Sometimes each day; sometimes with gaps of weeks. If I was going to be able to wear it during the coming winter, I’d better get my skates ( or shuttles) on. Starting now, I may have the cloth ready by the end of May, followed by a month of procrastinating with the fear of cutting into the fabric to make the jacket. Continue reading “Handwoven Bomber jacket : design musings”

Handwoven: Ray of sunshine tea towels

While hanging out the washing last month, I noticed that my tea-towels were threadbare and developing holes. And so my summer weaving project was decided for me. Continue reading “Handwoven: Ray of sunshine tea towels”

A double-weave rag-bag

Sorry about the title, but it was the easiest way to describe it. Basically it is a small tote woven using strips of an unwanted fabric. Add in a little experimenting with double-weave to weave the body of the back as a tube and you get a double-weave rag-bag! Continue reading “A double-weave rag-bag”

Handwoven: Happy accident scarf

My latest scarf is a bit of a happy accident. Collapse weave without even trying 🙂 Collapse weave is where the fabric naturally forms peaks and troughs as though it has been pleated or shirred, It does that because of the tensions within the warp and weft threads rather than any treatment.

It started off with a skein of hand-painted yarn that I bought at a weaver’s market. It’s from the same person who dyed the skein used in my orange & blue scarf.

Hand-painted skeins

Continue reading “Handwoven: Happy accident scarf”