Friends Are The People Who Know The Words To The Song In Your Heart……

I am so fortunate to have had many friends in my life that definitely know the words to the song in my heart. And something that makes me very sad is when one of them is going through something difficult in their lives. You know that you can’t “fix” it for them but all the same you somehow want to help build them up and encourage them that they will get through this hardship.

Today I wanted to share a weaving project that was meant to do just that. A friend of mine was going through something tough and was feeling pretty discouraged and I began to try to think of something that might cheer her up.

I decided I wanted to try to weave something colorful and cheerful for my friend. I was just finishing up a project on one of my floor looms that had some leftover dark brown cottolin warp threads, so I decided to try an experiment. This purse was the result of that experiment.

I knew my friend loved very colorful things so I knew that the purse would need to have lots of color. I went through a bunch of leftover yarns that I had from other projects and made a pile of them by my loom and then began weaving random patterns. This is how it looked on the loom during the weaving process.

There was no rhyme or reason to how I laid the colors or patterns out, this was just random treadling and colorful playing in my threads.

I really did not even try to repeat or keep track of any of the patterns I was weaving.

Once I felt like I had a big enough piece woven to make a small purse I stopped weaving. Of course I also stopped because I ran out of warp 🙂

At this point I really wasn’t quite sure if this was going to look like the cute little purse that I had envisioned. I did the finishing wash and waited for it to dry to see if this was going to be a big enough piece to make the purse.

During this same time period I had been experimenting with dyeing some silk scarves. I went through some of my finished pieces and picked this one to use for the lining of the purse.

As I began the construction of the purse I decided it definitely needed some

embellishments, so I added the mirrored and hand buttonhole stitched circles and the scroll that I had made by crocheting together multiple threads. I added a button and closure threads that had been braided and sewn into the flap.

I twisted a bunch of the leftover weaving threads together, putting a knot at each end to make a tassel, and hand sewed it onto the purse for the strap.

Before sewing the lining into the purse I stamped it with this friendship saying and the music notes on each side. I heat set the printing to make sure it was permanent.

My experiment was now complete and I was anxious to wrap it up pretty and give to my friend.

I was so glad to have something to give to her that I had handmade to brighten her day. She is still very much in my daily thoughts and prayers. Even though we now live many miles apart we still keep in contact and are still a part of each others lives.

I hope this article inspires you to make something beautiful, and treasure your friendships!

Until next time……..

….I Wish You Peace.

Do you remember that beautiful shimmering warp I posted about last week? Well, it just turned into an even more beautiful shimmering scarf !! This is the finished scarf.

I thought you might like to see some pictures of the scarf being woven so here are a few.

After I added the warp to the loom then the weaving process began….

…and the twill pattern began to show through the woven threads.

This picture shows the texture of the twill weaving.

I love how this zig zagging textured twill pattern looks intermixed with the bands of plain weave.

Time to cut the woven scarf off the loom and start the finishing process.

I wove the scarf about 98 inches long but as expected it did shrink a little in the finishing wash. But before I washed it I tied the fringe at each end of the scarf.

This is how the scarf looked after it was washed, air dried, then fluffed in the dryer.

It has a very fluid and silky drape.

I love how my shimmering scarf turned out!

Here is a sneak peek at my next project going on the loom. I will be using these beautiful hand dyed skeins of rayon yarn to make another twill patterned scarf.