A mixed bag
I am CHOCHA over this bag! (chocha is used in Bolivia and Argentina to mean "exceedingly pleased"!) This is my first large-ish sewing project. Apart from the flap which I shaped in a curve there was no cutting involved as I put this together with separately woven pieces that I made on my backstrap loom.
That's beacuse it was never meant to be a bag. I had woven a small panel as an ikat experiment and threw in some supplementary weft motifs for interest. The motifs are from a weaving from Bhutan. Then I decided it really needed to be something. So I wove the back piece...just a plain warp- faced piece of fabric of the same dimensions as the ikat panel and a band for the sides.
I sewed a tuck to make flat bottom (a new sewing skill...very excited to be able to use it!) and wove another small piece to use as the flap. I have gotten used to cutting and shaping the flaps on my woven cell phone pouches and so did the same for the flap on this bag. Then I edged it with a tubular woven band which gets woven and sewn at the same time using the weft as the sewing thread. That covered the raw edge nicely. I still have to put in the zip and I have had lots of practice doing that too on the various purses I have made..
I am not very skilled with a sewing needle and don't own a machine but I love handsewing. It is very relaxing and I like striving to make the stitches the least visible possible. I left a slit in the weaving for a button hole and thought it would be fun to weave a supplementary weft motif to outline it..
I am warming up to a tote bag project now. This bag is still a bit on the "boxy" side but I hope to learn more about sewing and shaping and create some more interesting bag shapes.
http://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/
Bhutanese motifs and a wee bit of ikat
This started out as a simple ikat experiment with some lovely terracotta dye that I got in the US but then I decided to add some Bhutanese motifs with supplementary wefts that I had seen on a textile in a friend's collection. The ikat experiment has given me lots to think about in terms of improvements for the next piece but I am very happy with the way the Bhutanese patterns came out. I used an inlay technique so the designs cannot be seen on the back of the fabric. This was a lot of fun to make! I am not sure if I will sew it into something or just keep it as a sample. Who knew that learning to weave tiny supplementary motifs on hatbands here in Bolivia would lead me to Bhutan! More on my blog.
One pot ikat
I started with natural colored yarn. I dyed some colors and used those to wind a stripe in the warp. This stripe was then shifted and tied to reserve some of the colored stripe in simple straight bands. Most of the rest of the warp was wound from the natural yarn. A few narrow stripes of the colored yarns were wound separately. The ikat and natural warp were dyed together in one pot, black.
Ties removed, the warp assembled and un-shifted, and woven.
This was meant to be one of two panels to make a poncho, but the colors ran out and the instructor (me) ended up with only one panel. It is a fine shawl.
Growth- Specimen
Woven for the Handwoven Sock Yarn Contest.
It is a tabby with knotted pile, made to look like mold growth.
All the yarn is hand dyed by ikat tie off or hand painted warp and weft.
Ikat scarf
My friend Kathy and I originally dyed this yarn with goldenrod flowers, but it was a bit "dull." When another friend was having a bunch of us over to share an indigo pot a couple months ago, I decided to overdye this. I dipped about 2/3 of the yarn "as is." The other third I wrapped for Ikat. I dipped it once with all the wraps in place. Then I removed about half of them and dipped it again so I have some sections that stayed yellow, some that are a light green (were wrapped for the first dip and unwrapped for the second) and the majority of it dark green.
I warped the two yarns together and threaded them every other heddle. For weft, I switched back and forth randomly between the solid yarn and the Ikat.
Regular fringe, cut at a diagonal.
Sicily
I hated this project form my advanced weaving class. We ikat dyed warps that were made from the stickiest wool in the world and were six yards long. We all wanted to kill our professor, and none of us were happy with our own pieces. I gave my to my class mate and friend Sicily because it looks like her.
