"Gang Aft A-Gley"

I planned a silk fabric for clothing in black and white stripes: 30's/2 silk sett at 48 EPI. I have lots of cones of silk, all white, which means I will have to dye the black.

I ran the warps, washed them, and set up the dyepot with a 3% solution of black dye. I entered the warps, and here begins the "awry".

The dyepot looked terribly black. It needed just a bit of red, just a bit, which I had on hand, all mixed up. So I dumped some red dye in. That's better! And so, the "black" warps are a nice dark red:



But... herein lies the rub: now it is no longer a "black and white" fabric. Might as well dye the rest:



The "warps formerly known as black" are at the top in this photo, and the rest are various colors. The warp will still be striped, just not black and white. There is a "little" white though, in the resist areas of one small warp.

Maybe there should be a little black too?



Look! I managed to dye actual black! It can still be my "black and white" fabric. It just tripped and fell into some color:



Some things do go as actually planned:



The minute I saw this silk band, woven by John Mullarkey, I knew how this bag would look.

I had the grey and yellow leather on hand, I knew the shape, a little lunchbox, would be perfect to showcase the band and make for a useful project bag, or storage box, and lo, everything managed to fall into place: the bag is exactly how I imagined it!

Practice is paying off. Getting to mastery is not a straight line, and I am quite sure there will be a few face-plants still left in my future, but the satisfaction of making something exactly as envisioned? Priceless!