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Tuesday 19 September 2017

Hand Spun Snatch and Grab Bag

Snatch and Grab?  Sounds like I stole this one, doesn't it?  But no, I haven't resorted to shop lifting yet!

This is a little project I wanted to make for my sister who arrived yesterday for a week's holiday.  I finished it on 14th September, so just in time really.

The name of the bag came from the yarn I used - hand spun "Snatch and Grab Falkland" that I spun during the Tour de Fleece 4 years ago.  It's been floundering in a cupboard ever since so it was time it had its day.


The Falkland fleece I used was dyed with all sorts of different plants : logwood, woad, dyer's chamomile, comfrey, fennel, onion skins, madder and Brazilwood, then carded into rolags which were tossed into a bag all together.  When I was spinning them I just put my hand in the bag and spun whatever came out, hence "snatch and grab".

I chose this pattern for the bag which called for 200-250 yards of fingering weight (14 wraps per inch) yarn.  The Falkland was 324 yards so I thought I'd have plenty.  When I got about a third of the way up the body of the bag, I was pretty sure I wouldn't have enough (actually I did make it a little bit bigger than the pattern, so I shouldn't really have been surprised) so I picked out three contrasting balls of hand spun to go with it.


On the left is some merino/silk dyed with woad, in the middle some naturally coloured baby alpaca mixed with charcoal bamboo, and Falkland/silk dyed with raspberry acid dye.


I just chose to do some simple stripes in various forms to add a bit of interest and extend my yarn.


This was an incredibly easy pattern to do, which was just as well as it was years since I'd done any crochet.  I added a little crocheted flower using the raspberry Falkland/silk and finished it with a button in the middle.


The final job was to line the bag and the handles with fabric.  I found a dress that I'd made years and years ago but which I'd only worn a couple of times.  There was no chance it would ever fit me again (I was really skinny then!) so I cut it up and used it for this project. Another photo, because this bag is reversible (I put some deep pockets on the side) :-


A very easy and satisfying project, which will definitely be done again - especially as I want one!

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