Woven mostly during a Dorset Guild of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers workshop with the lovely Riita Sinkonnen-Davies, my “Weaving New from Old” project was woven on a little old Dryad 4-shaft loom, still with metal heddles and tied together with various rather random bits of string.
The fabrics I chose were all old duvet covers, three of them pure cotton but the other two 50/50 polycotton. I wasn’t sure that the rainforest print, with the orange/turquoise/green colours, would work with the dominant pinks & purples of the other fabrics, but in the event, it brought the mix alive. I’d intended to make a simple table runner, something we didn’t have & would use.
Although I warped the loom as I would my knitters loom, by running round the dining table and a tucked-in carver chair, it somehow ended up several inches longer than the 6′ table! So I decided to cut it & use two thirds for the table runner (now about 4′ long) and one third to make a bag; I can always use another bag. The table runner is already in use, although I have yet to back it. Every mealtime I spot another mistake, but I love it anyway. As do the cats, needless to say… On the bag, I have “laced” in the row where one of the shafts had fallen out of play, hence only half of the warps are there; it will get hard use carrying various projects around, and that would form a weak point, so I decided to lace it down in a different colour to the two warp yarns. (I’ve used the same colour (blue) to stitch the handle on.) Once the table runner has a backing, I will probably stitch a pattern quilting-style over the weave to stabilise the other place where this had happened, and a few places where the shuttle had skipped a warp – it’s likely I was nattering, not concentrating!
The bag is lined with some old canvas that I’d rescued, probably originally part of an outdoor cushion cover, thinking just to stitch a tough bag from that. There is, of course, a pocket inside. The handle is finger-woven (or braided?) from the duvet fabrics, ripped in 2″ strips as I would for a twined-weave project. The “fastening” is finger-woven from narrow strips left over from the workshop, and I’ve used an old mother-of-pearl bead from a broken pair of ear-rings, secured by a little ribbon rose found by my sewing machine. These were fastened on with old button thread, even though it’s not the best colour; my aim was to use what I already had rather than buy new, which seemed most appropriate.
I’m very happy with the results, however many blunders I made and however dubious my choice of colours, and can’t wait to tackle more projects – or to find a bigger loom (again) now that we have a little more space…
A recycled lifestyle... 