Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

The Old One (silk, knotted pile) was indeed getting funky, mostly on the strap:



Both sides of the strap are wearing out:






In its defense: this bag has been used everyday for almost 8 years: I made it in 2003. I have had to take it apart and re-make it once, to wash it for beauty shots for The Book, and also? because the strap needed to be replaced then too. The strap wears out because:



I am a bad person and I carry my hair clip on the band. Do not do this, unless you want to rip through straps.

I could have simply replaced the strap again, but, alas, the actual weaving is also wearing out on the edges of the flap (arrow):



This meant more extensive repair, and I decided to go for retirement. These two panels (the front and back) will get cut off, washed and re-purposed, probably as pillow tops (with some added cloth). Yet! Another! Project! for the future-project pile....

The New Bag:



The design is based on the button (copper with a brass outline), the wool is from the Victorian Tapestry Workshop. I discussed working on the bag here, with more information on the stranded wools that are the pile yarns.

Speaking of Cute as a Button:


If you won't let me eat my hat, I will wear it askew.

I suppose I should change the post title to Grandma's Got a Brand New Bag? :D!

Fruit Salad

Been weaving. Handspun wool, from Reflection Farms, purchased at SOAR 2009 in Bend Oregon. Spun on a Lendrum Saxony, plied on the SpinTech. I call it Fruit Salad because there are plums, strawberries, mangoes, blood oranges and blueberries in there! Yummy :).

The fabric was sett at 15 epi, and is about 4 yards long, x 20 inches wide, on the loom. This is finished, and off the loom actually, but not washed yet. I'm too busy getting the next warp on.

More to come!
Meanwhile:


Somebody has been visiting Hawaii, where, if they don't let you eat fruit salad, you might as well eat your hat.

Out With The Old

It is a New Year, after all (some weeks old, unless we are doing Chinese New Year).

New Tea Cozy, stranded wool, which keeps the pot extra-toasty:



The tea pot has been cozy for several years in a cotton patchwork job that is lined and interlined:


It is not nearly as warm as the new wool one though. The new one was a gift from a friend, who knits with singles(!) of all things, and it will be the new stay-at-home cozy. The old one will be the traveling cozy. I am rich in cozies!

More New: Blog post-provoker extraordinaire Lindsey has retired from the library and finally(!) started her own blog! Now please go over and comment on how rarely she posts, and go back regularly and ask her to post more. She who laughs last.....

Lindsey recently started a campaign to finish up all the old projects in her studio. Funny thing is, she has a knitting studio and a weaving studio. She is only counting knitting projects so far. She recently finished a shawl, in a pattern which I have forgotten. I also can't remember if she could not find the yarn she was using, or ran out, but in any case, she knit the border and edging in yarns other than the central field:



The colors were nice, but she knew an over-dye would blend them a little better, so she handed me the shawl and gave me carte blanche to pick a color for it. I used gold:



The colors are more unified now, even though the yarns each took more or less color depending on their fiber content and previous color.

Speaking of gold:


Josiah got a new sweater. It's handspun superwash wool, dyed top from Spincerely Yours. Sorry for the poor photo quality: camera phone. Nice tractor buttons, though, eh?

If you need buttons, my friend Mollie has opened a new online custom button business. Mollie has taught button making classes for years, but I have never indulged. Lucky me, I can now have her just make the buttons, any color any size (except, maybe, tractors). Good things come to those who procrastinate (wait? is that right?).

And last, certainly not least, she-who-still-seems-new to me:



A very Big Girl.