Festive

It's always fun to have a new bag for a party. This one is for SOAR, starting this Sunday, and it's done just in time!

You might recognize the colors, this is the same silk that Nancy dyed for my birthday jacket here. There was an extra knitted panel of silk:



which Nancy gave me to weave up a sample scarf for her SOAR vendor booth. I procrastinated, thankfully, because she really doesn't need another silk scarf, Chris Little Carmack has been doing an admirable job of weaving beautiful scarves for her. Nope, what Nancy needed was a silk bag.

So I ran the warp:



The beautiful silk was just too pretty:



And then I took it off the warping board:



:-)! Is that fun? It looks so festive, like curly ribbon. No matter, I put the warp on the loom:



This is through the heddles, and this:



is tied on, ready to weave. You can see one escapee, and the festive curly look returns whenever the yarn is not under tension. Whoop!

For the record, the warp is three yards long, 114 ends, sett at 30 epi, 3.8" in the reed. I warped from to back, and there was no problem contending with the curliness of the yarns; whenever I applied tension, they behaved quite nicely. I wove off the fabric with a 5/2 mercerized cotton weft:



Then I needed a band. I reserved a portion of the silk for a handle woven on the inkle:



The bag panel was folded and stitched, and the band was sewn to both sides. The bag is lined with some silk, and interlined with thin batting. The final touch: those festive thrums, made into a tassel:



The total yardage in one silk blank was 420. It would make a nice scarf sett a little wider, as Chris has amply demonstrated. And now Nancy has a new sample for her booth. Stop by and see her next week at SOAR, she and Deb will be selling under the name Color to Dye For.

Me? Gerbiling. Packing. Wrapping up. I should not be taking the time to blog but there you go.