Odds and Ends

 I've taken up a new fiber-hobby:  bobbin lace.  Like my lace knitting, this is one that requires time and concentration.  So far I have made two tiny samples--they aren't even considered true lace!--but they were neat to weave!

Bobbin lace is essentially weaving that is tensioned by pulling the threads against pins.  The manipulations of the bobbins creates the woven sections.

I've made some new little bags.  These are based on a tutorial posted at Sew Together.  They have a zipper at the top and angled sides so the bottom sits flat.  The one with the bright yellow zipper was my test piece made with commercial fabrics.  The other three are made with handwoven fabric from a network drafting sampler I wove recently.    The zipper insertions are all slightly different on the purple bags.  I like the look of the bag at the back best.

Handspun Yellow Cotton

I've been spinning a yellow cotton for a while now.  It's some of the ginned cotton that my dad got that I dyed yellow.  I've drum carded it, picked out the seed bits and other unwanted waste, hand carded it into punis and spun it into yarn.  Whew!  The end results are a small woven piece for my collection of COE-handspinning work and a skein of fine (~40 wraps per inch) cotton.

The cotton was spun on my Matchless spinning wheel.  The woven piece was technically woven on my Might Wolf, but I was just using the loom as a tensioning device to hold the warp.  The threads went through the reed (to set the spacing of the warp), but weren't threaded through the heddles.  I tied  continuous string heddles (there's a great tutorial here at Laverne Waddington's site) over a knitting needle to make one of the sheds and used a wood shuttle to create the opposite one.