Can an Old Sack be Renewed by Macramé?

1) Recipes from Home and Abroad : If ever you throw away old shoes – save the shoestrings !, 2) New blog on the kid : Can an Old Sack be Renewed by Macramé?

Last Friday, I knew the answer is yes.

I had over months since the summer been repairing a sack that was falling apart, by adding strings arranged by making knots around strings. Friday morning, I cut off what was left of the original sack, and the macramé sack is in use. Parts will have to be added, it's a bit awkward with sleeping bag peeping out of sack for nearly a foot length when the sack is crammed, but it was not really falling out.

Now, here is the basics on how I did what is still useful:

The top part of the sack, which contains the drawstring, was first fortified by loops starting below the part where the cloth was doubled to contain the it and going above it. Take string or tripled string plaited from a fastened point to a hole in the cloth under the seam, push it through to make a loop, continue, next hole, next hole. Either all around, or start off without really closing the top fortification, start out from two or three or four rows of loops, so the fortification doesn't unduly narrow the opening of the sack.

Loops should be about 10 cm apart. Or 4 inches.

If the original fortification was one string and not a triple plait, go same way back to at least double it.

Next, add string in a long series of half hitches around the double or triple plaited string. In order to do it well, I hope you have done some macramé before.

Next, add a kind of grid along top, under the loops. Here I started using triple plaited string before doing the half hitches around it. Ideally, use loops attached onto nether part of the loops for the drawstring, let the strings meet after crisscrossing. Say you have twelve loops for the drawstring, then under four equidistant of them, you can hang the strings down, so they meet in pairs. Where they meet, you tie them together by the superfluous piece of string from the triple plaiting. Then you do same thing under the four drawstring loops to the right of each already done. Take care they cross alternatively same direction below. Then the under the four drawstring loops that are left, now criss cross.

Now tie the half hitches, start off with a larks head around a crossing of two strings, like under a drawstring loop, continue all around, meaning that whereever strings cross, X-wise, you tie two or four half hitches around both and then continue on other string same level as before rather than on same string lower level. Next, take the level under it, until you are done to where strings meet. After each level, check that the macramé fortification is not narrowing the sack opening. If it starts getting narrow, you will need to undo and pull apart, adding material between to keep it easy to enter and take out your stuff.

When these top levels are ready, get to lowest level. Make long triple plaited strings, cross them at midlength, put crossing inside bag. Next make a "macramé hotpad" and put it inside the sack under the crossed triple plaited strings. Push these through holes in the "hotpad" and pull out the strings through four holes in ground level. Either equidistant or two closer to each other than to the two others, depending on form of sack.

Then attach to the grid top of sack. A crossing of two strings is stronger to attack the new ones to than the low bent meeting of two strings going together - unless you made them meet a long way. And attaching to more than one low bend or crossing is tronger still. Once you have rounded, as in looped, the crossings and bends you think you need, maybe looping the loop into a figure eight, you tied the loop together by half hitches around both ends of the string, then you go along the side which is not going down all way and go along that string up, when strings cross, double hitch both and continue on same side and other string as before, loop around and now do half hitches down - again at any crossing, double hitch both strings and continue same side other string, and all down to the holes at the bottom.

Now add levels and crisscross strings, for my part I added a belt half way between ground level and top grid and another one around the ground level, meeting the four strings that go up. I added another beltlike sequence of triple plaited strings between nethermost belt and where mid belt crosses the up and down strings. Then I added triple plaited strings in curves between top grid and mid belt, and at most if not all yet crossings, I attached by halfhitching the cords. Attaching a new string for half hitching is obviously done by larks heads. Down I have added fish net after fish net. As described in the shoestrings post.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Victorian and
other martyrs under Huneric
23-III-2015

PS, finally, when I think that either macramé or fishnets are close enough to keep the stuff I need kept, I cut, last Friday, away the oroginal textiles./HGL