Canada Day and Prepping for a Bag Class.
This last week, I have been preparing for a bag class I am teaching. This is a beginner class, so they will be making rope handles. The ropes will then go through holes in the bag and be tied with a knot. This is a nice style and fairly easy, so they can concentrate on the bag part.
Please excuse the pictures; I adjusted them as best I could. The light bounce from the fluorescent lights on the white wool and the plastic was terrible.
I don’t want to spend a lot of time on the ropes. To that end, I have been making snakes to act as the inside of thier ropes. I use a pretty standard layout, a row of wool singled across and then a line of wool at 90 degrees at the near side to roll around.
I roll it up dry and work it dry for a while to shrink it before adding water. If I go slow and gentle, I can get a nice, smooth snake. In this case, I am not being that careful because they will all get a final layer of coloured wool to match thier bags.
Adding a final layer of colour around the finished but wet ropes worked really well. The final layer was easy to wrap tightly around the core. I didn’t have to worry about “cracks” or “fissures” forming if I rolled a little too fast or not quite round enough. I think I will do that from now on, as it gave a nice, tight, smooth finish.
What I want to know is, does anyone know of a faster and or easier way to make ropes? They always take longer than you think they will, and if you’re doing more than a few, they are hard on your hands, or at least on my hands. I found ways to make small balls and large balls, but nothing on ropes. Any hints or ideas?
9 thoughts on “Canada Day and Prepping for a Bag Class.”
Looking forward to see the class photos!
Ropes are hard work and certainly take a lot of fulling time to harden completely. Interesting to see that you roll ropes on plastic on the bamboo but do they slide around? Is it an easier method than rolling them directly on the bamboo for friction?
We haven’t made a lot of ropes so haven’t experimented much, but so far have found that fulling them between bamboo mats (not rolled up mats – flat mats with the rope in between then using flat hands on the top mat to roll back and forth) works quite well.
Once tried putting mats on floor, then sitting down and using feet to roll but that was tiring because had to keep getting up and down to adjust the mats.
Would love to hear of a quick method 🙂
I will share pictures next time. The rope is in the fold of the mat so it is easy to roll it back and forth. It’s easy enough if you need one but when you need lots or a long one, it takes a toll on your hands and its time consuming if you don’t want cracks. Although after a while I realized it didn’t matter if there were cracks because I was going to add colour after. When I added the colour I realized it was easy to roll the wool up tightly around the wet rope. I will not be as fussy about cracks and just add a final layer when done from now on. still hard on the hands.
If Mandy Nash reads your post she’ll no doubt tell us how she does it. I did a workshop with her, years ago now, where we had to make, admittedly short, ropes or rods of different colours. However I can’t really remember how she showed us what to do. I think it was just a line of fibres all facing the same way, which were turned into the ropes. I think that the flat fibres were “rounded” by placing a finger on either side of the fibres and moved, gently to begin with, from side to side. Your fingers would keep all the fibres together and you would end up with a rope.
Not very clear I’m afraid and may even not be what Mandy told us. As I said it was quite some time ago.
I love your green snake, lovely fibres.
Looking forward to seeing the bag class.
Ann
Mandy Nash has some really cool folding techniques. I have done small ropes that way. I will post pictures form class. We were outside and it was so hot about 30c but we had shade, lots of water and a place to pop into and cool off. I am glad its not today it will be 46c with the humidex.
You do have some wide variations of temperatures. I was close to expiring here (UK) at 31C last week. I think I would expire from 46C. 🥵
Ann
yes we have a huge shift. It has a lot to do with where the jet stream is at different times of the year. The actual temperature is 36c. The humidex is how it feels with the humidity. It is very humid today so it feels like 46. We have an air conditioner on our main floor and that helps a lot.
It occurs to me Ann that you could perhaps use thickly but lightly spun wool, like the commercial wool sold for felting, as an initial core of your snake. You could then add extra tops in the way you do now. Perhaps if you wet the core wool adding the tops would be easier, I think you said? I don’t know if you spin yourself. You could ply and cable ply thinner yarns to make up a thicker core?
Ann
The idea for adding color to the outside is great. I did use squares of stair tread to full multiple ropes at one time. One on the bottom and one to rub over the top of the ropes. It worked well for fulling but the beginning always seems to take a lot of time.
Ruth
That seems like a good idea for multiples. i will have to give it a try. i was wondering about yoga mats too, i know they are good for fulling larger pieces.