Kernn

Climbing rope is retired if it has been involved in a huge fall with extreme loads or if it shows damage, such as cuts, flat spots, stiffness or lots of fuzziness. Even a rope that shows no visible signs of damage eventually needs to be retired.

Repurposing retired climbing rope

Dismantling the rope

Climbing rope is composed of an inner core (kern) and an outer shell (mantle). It was meticuously stripped inch by inch revealing 7-10 strands of kern.

Thorugh experimentation I found that the kern was able to be crocheted. I had recently made market bags and wanted to create something similar with the rope.

Drawing Inspiration

Started by crocheting the kern to create the body of the bag and looping the mantle through the top to create a handle. Experimenting more and discovered that implemanting the mantle into the body creates a star shape pattern which was used to make the bottom of the bags.

Iterating patterns

Through trial and error I was finally able to create a pattern for the body of the bag. A liner was sewn and woven into place by the adjustable handles. The process was then repeated to create a wide variety of Kernn bags

Turning one into many

One use case of Kernn is a chalk bag. Bringing the climbing rope full circle back into the clibming scene. The liner is removeable allowing the user to wash it as needed. The handles are adjustable to fit the size and specific needs of the user.

Potential use case