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.

Last post I gave a hint about the next project I was starting to work on and the following is an update on how that project is going. I started out with this gorgeous hand dyed warp thread I got from Robinjedmundson on Etsy.

I decided it would be cool to make a purse using this colorful rayon warp by combining it with a cotton weft. For the weft I used a mercerized cotton flake yarn. I felt that this combination of fibers would give the cloth enough body to make a purse.

I warped up the loom with a combined twill pattern using a 15 dent reed. The loom was warped with 130 threads (this included the 2 float threads).

Because I had already done this pattern once with the same number of warp threads for another project …

I just tied the new warp onto the old warp and pulled the threads through the reed and through the heddles instead of having to thread all of them from scratch.

This process saves lots of time if you are making the same pattern several times but want to do different colors.

I wove using a mercerized cotton flake yarn in a dark teal color for the weft.

I really love the play of colors in this dyed warp combined with the dark teal weft.

Here is a close up picture of the interplay of colors in the pattern.

The Weaving progressed very nicely, and the fibers were a joy to work with.

The colors did not show up very well in this picture but this is the piece as it was being taken off the loom.

And this is the piece laid out before finishing.

Once I did the finishing wash, dry and cutting off of the spliced in weaving tails, the finished cloth measured about 7 inches wide, and 64 inches long. I cut the fringe on one end 4 inches long and at the other end I cut it 9 inches long.

The end of the cloth that has the shorter fringe will be the top flap of the purse, and the longer fringe will be at the bottom of the purse.

I decided to add some copper and beading embellishments to the shorter fringe that will be on the top front flap of the purse.

First I strung some beads and added them.

Then I flattened some pennies and textured one,

domed another and added more copper accents by twisting some copper wires and flattening them.

I am also considering adding these items……

Using this purple perle cotton, I thought I would add these beads by sewing the thread in and out of the fabric so that it shows through on top while tacking down the beads at the same time. I also though I would use some of these purple beads (right side of the picture) to add a few more strands of purple accents in 2 or 3 other places along the fringe.

I feel the purse is progressing nicely and I have several ideas already on how I want to piece it together. I don’t have very much of the warp thread left, but there is enough to add some into the inkle band that I am going to weave for the purse strap.

….So for now, it’s back to the loom….

Thanks for dropping in, hope this project inspires you to make something beautiful today!!

Until next time…..

….I wish you Peace