Weaving a Bag

I've been doing a lot of pin loom weaving lately. I showed you some of my hexagons recently but I've also been learning how to weave shapes together on Weavette style looms.

Using a mixture of online instructions - none of which quite answered all my questions - and an awful lot of trial and error, I finally got the hang of it. This is what I made ... 

... a rainbow tote bag. As you can see, I used twelve different bright colours as well as black for contrast. The colours continue on the other side of the bag.

I used two Hazel Rose looms for this project, the two inch square multi loom and the two by six bookmark loom. 

Things I learned from making this bag:

        Trying to weave two black shapes together on the loom when you're not entirely sure

        what you're doing isn't a good idea. 

        You need to cut a very long length of yarn to join the big rectangles together which 

        leads to much tangling and  muttering.

        Fusible interfacing works well with woven fabric if you're going to sew the pieces 

        together. If you're planning to crochet them, you need to stitch the interfacing down.

Having said that, I enjoyed working out how to put the bag together as I went along. Having blocked the pieces and backed them with interfacing, I crocheted round the edges and then slip stitched them together. At the top of the bag I added a crab stitch edging to make it a bit stronger.

It took a while to work out what to do for the handles. In the end I joined two six inch rectangles and two little squares in black for one side and eight little squares for the other - six colours with a black square at each end. The handles didn't come out quite the same length (presumably because of the different number of joins) so there was more blocking and a lot of counting out loud as I crocheted along the edges to make sure they would match.

Inside each handle is a length of webbing to strengthen it. I just had enough black in stock to make the two handles. For extra stability I lined the bag with fabric. I was pleased to find this rainbow fabric amongst what we refer to as 'Grandma's Quilt Shop' i.e. the fabric I inherited from my Mum.

I'm very pleased with my first attempt at weaving a bag and it's already being put to good use.

Here it is holding 100 short lengths of yarn, waiting to be woven into the next bag. This time I'm only using the little two inch loom. The bag is going to be bigger than the first one and I'm going to give it sides and a bottom as well as a back and front. The plan is to weave a chequerboard of twenty mixed bright colours and four neutrals. Too much random makes my head hurt so I've planned the colour order in advance, hence the shade card.

Here's my progress so far.

Once I've finished that second row (and darned in the ends), that will be the first of the sides done. Darning in all the tails is easier than you might think as the woven join gives a dense line to hide them in.

I would have made more progress if I hadn't decided to write up a photo tutorial on the joining as I went along. All I can say is that it's already thirteen pages long and has over forty photos! Still, there's no danger of me not remembering how to do it now. I'd be happy to share my notes when they're finished if anyone's interested. 

Progress should be quicker now I don't have to stop several times a square to take photos. This is one of those techniques that looks much more complicated written down than it is to actually do. It's based on simple rules and, once you've got the hang of it, the weaving (and joining) goes pretty quickly. I'm glad to have added it to my not very extensive weaving repertoire.

I rather like the look of the wrong side of the joined fabric too.