Site updated 8/28/2010 2:58:19 PM
all content and images © Tom and Linda Diak 2001-2010
MADE IN VERMONT
The Two Batt Bag
The Finished Bag
Felted hat and close-up of fabric
I cheated just a wee bit by grabbing a little bit of red fiber for a stripe. What I love most about working with the batts unspun is how the colors blend in a watercolor fashion - an effect you can't get by using yarn. Emboldened by the success of the hat, I decided to take on a larger project. I have been wanting to make something fun out of the rainbow batts. I tossed around a few ideas and settled on a nice tote bag. One can never have too many totes!
I began by drafting out the fiber. Drafting is a spinning term - thinning out the fiber is referred to as drafting. You are making a thin rope - called a roving - of fiber to work with.
Drafting and crocheting with the fiber
From there, it was business as usual. Using a 7 mm Hummingbird™ hook, I chained 20 stitches and worked a half double crochet (US) in each stitch, and then worked back up the other side of the chain. I did a double increase at each corner of the following rounds until I had a total of 96 stitches, and the bag, when laid flat, measured 18 inches wide. From there, I just continued working in the round until I had used one full batt, and most of a second. I saved the purple and black portion of the second batt for the strap.
For the strap, I chained 12 and then worked 10 hdc in each row until the strap was long enough for the bag. I went back and edged the strap and the bag in the black that remained from the batt.
Crocheted but not yet felted. A close-up of the stitches
Justin felting away on the kitchen sink (with a few extra bubbles!), and the bag, hanging to dry
To felt the bag, I employed the sink and my youngest son, Justin. Rather than trust the bag to my front-loading washer, which won't let me control how long something is agitated, I chose to felt it at the sink. Using hot water and dish soap, and a lot of rubbing, the bag felted down to a respectable 12 by 12 inches with about 20 minutes of work. Felt shrinks in the direction it is rubbed. Knowing this, I was able to control the shape of the bag better than leaving it to the whims of my washing machine.
To dry it with some shape, I found a box the right size, slipped a plastic bag over the box, and tugged and pulled the tote bag onto it.
Text and images © 2003-2010 Linda Diak, DyakCraft
Ever since Janet Rehfeldt taught crocheting and knitting with unspun fibers at a CGOA conference, I have been entranced by the idea. I had never done much with it other than make small samples when demonstrating in our booth. The most frequently asked question is "how far does a batt go?" It depends on whether you are knitting or crocheting and also on how thick or thin you draft out the fiber, but I felt some projects were in order to better illustrate what one could achieve with a batt - or two - of unspun fiber.
Note: these projects were made using our fiber batts that are available in our FiberStore - the corriedale we use in our batts has a staple long enough to facilitate maintaining tension while knitting or crocheting with the fibers in an unspun state.
My first project was a simple hat. Crocheted in the round and then felted, this hat took one half of a batt:
