The Jankyville food bank string bag
Apr. 15th, 2026 09:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseI think I've previously mentioned that I make string bags. These things go down a storm at the local food bank; they're big, they're light, and they're strong. They'll easily swallow 10 to 15 kg of tins, jars, packets, bottles, and other heavies. Of course, we do encourage people to bring their own bags, but they generally don't know that if they're coming for the first time, and even if they're not, they quite often forget. We do have other bags available, but one of these is equivalent to two or three supermarket carrier bags, plus it's reusable, plus when it finally does wear out it's biodegradable, because it's made from jute twine.
If you want to learn how to net, the finest resource I know is available here: https://archive.org/details/netmaking00hold/page/n5/mode/2up Net Making by Charles Holdgate is a wonderful little book with extremely clear diagrams. I downloaded it as a refresher course, but it explains everything so well that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to a complete beginner. You will also want netting needles, as they're called (actually they're shuttles rather than needles, as their purpose is to hold a long strand neatly rather than to pierce anything); the traditional design is boat-shaped, but it is much easier to wind modern steel ones, which you can buy here: https://www.ginabsilkworks.co.uk/search/products?keywords=netting These are also a lot better than the traditional ones if you're trying to do fine-gauge netting, because they're thinner so it's easier to put them through the holes. For a string bag it doesn't matter too much which type you use. The only other thing you need, apart from your twine and a pair of scissors, is a mesh stick. For the string bags I use a strip of aluminium edging 3 cm wide; I used to use a small folding ruler about the same width, but it drove me nuts because of the hinge in the middle. I didn't realise how much that was slowing me down till I got the aluminium strip. What the mesh stick does is to keep the size of the meshes nice and even, because you wrap the twine round it every time you make a mesh knot.
This is how you make one of my string bags. If I don't give specific instructions for a technique, then it's in the book.
Start with a 12-loop grommet (which is to say 11 mesh loops and one drop knot). Work one plain round. Now work increases on alternate rounds; every 3 meshes, then every 4, and so on, till you've done a round where you increase every 7 meshes followed by one plain round. Work 4 more plain rounds (you've now got a total of 32 meshes).
Work 15 loops, then turn your work and knot the working strand into the bottom of the loop you've just made (note that this is not the standard decreasing technique, but it works very well for this bag). Work back to the beginning of the 15 loops - you've now got 14 on the current row - then turn and do the same thing. Keep going like this till you're left with 8 loops, and knot the strand into the bottom of the loop you've just made as before.
You're now ready to make the first handle. While Mr Holdgate does cover this in his book, he also tells you that you need a second person or a solid anchor point to make a handle, and I'm here to tell you that no, you really don't. You just need your wrist and a little dexterity. If you struggle with the dexterity, by all means make the handle the way he tells you in the book - whatever works for you. But what works for me is that I now loop the working strand over my wrist and knot it into the loop at the far end of the row, then take it back the other way and knot into the first free loop on the left, and so on, repeatedly going across from left to right and back again till there is one free loop remaining, which you leave for now. Then finish the handle using lark's-head knots the way he tells you in the book (or a fancier method such as the bosun's plait if you feel so inclined). Finally, knot the strand into the remaining free loop, and finish by drawing the end inside the handle using a darning needle. You should have 16 loops remaining on the other side of the bag; rejoin the twine, and do exactly the same as you did on the first side, starting by working 15 loops into them.
And there you have it - a really good, sturdy, useful string bag. May it serve you well!
If you want to learn how to net, the finest resource I know is available here: https://archive.org/details/netmaking00hold/page/n5/mode/2up Net Making by Charles Holdgate is a wonderful little book with extremely clear diagrams. I downloaded it as a refresher course, but it explains everything so well that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to a complete beginner. You will also want netting needles, as they're called (actually they're shuttles rather than needles, as their purpose is to hold a long strand neatly rather than to pierce anything); the traditional design is boat-shaped, but it is much easier to wind modern steel ones, which you can buy here: https://www.ginabsilkworks.co.uk/search/products?keywords=netting These are also a lot better than the traditional ones if you're trying to do fine-gauge netting, because they're thinner so it's easier to put them through the holes. For a string bag it doesn't matter too much which type you use. The only other thing you need, apart from your twine and a pair of scissors, is a mesh stick. For the string bags I use a strip of aluminium edging 3 cm wide; I used to use a small folding ruler about the same width, but it drove me nuts because of the hinge in the middle. I didn't realise how much that was slowing me down till I got the aluminium strip. What the mesh stick does is to keep the size of the meshes nice and even, because you wrap the twine round it every time you make a mesh knot.
This is how you make one of my string bags. If I don't give specific instructions for a technique, then it's in the book.
Start with a 12-loop grommet (which is to say 11 mesh loops and one drop knot). Work one plain round. Now work increases on alternate rounds; every 3 meshes, then every 4, and so on, till you've done a round where you increase every 7 meshes followed by one plain round. Work 4 more plain rounds (you've now got a total of 32 meshes).
Work 15 loops, then turn your work and knot the working strand into the bottom of the loop you've just made (note that this is not the standard decreasing technique, but it works very well for this bag). Work back to the beginning of the 15 loops - you've now got 14 on the current row - then turn and do the same thing. Keep going like this till you're left with 8 loops, and knot the strand into the bottom of the loop you've just made as before.
You're now ready to make the first handle. While Mr Holdgate does cover this in his book, he also tells you that you need a second person or a solid anchor point to make a handle, and I'm here to tell you that no, you really don't. You just need your wrist and a little dexterity. If you struggle with the dexterity, by all means make the handle the way he tells you in the book - whatever works for you. But what works for me is that I now loop the working strand over my wrist and knot it into the loop at the far end of the row, then take it back the other way and knot into the first free loop on the left, and so on, repeatedly going across from left to right and back again till there is one free loop remaining, which you leave for now. Then finish the handle using lark's-head knots the way he tells you in the book (or a fancier method such as the bosun's plait if you feel so inclined). Finally, knot the strand into the remaining free loop, and finish by drawing the end inside the handle using a darning needle. You should have 16 loops remaining on the other side of the bag; rejoin the twine, and do exactly the same as you did on the first side, starting by working 15 loops into them.
And there you have it - a really good, sturdy, useful string bag. May it serve you well!
