Beggar's Bag (click to enlarge)

CNCH starts tomorrow. I’ll provide a report next week. In the meantime, here are some eye candy on a few of my submissions. Drop by the gallery and take a look if you are in the Bay Area this weekend!

The bag on the left is the Beggar’s Bag for the Traditions and Innovations Gallery.

Draft: Floral Dance Star Variation (Anne Dixon)
Warp: Borgs 22/2 Cottolin (natural)
Tabby Weft: 8/2 cotton (natural)
Pattern Weft:  assorted handspun handpainted BFL singles (purchased at 2011 Whidbey Island Spin In from Island Fibers, I think)
Construction: all hand pieced, even down to the zipper and  lining.

I definitely learned quite a bit on this project. Even after re-sleying, I think the sett is still too close. I found out later in my research that I should have sleyed it for a loose plain weave. This is why I had to go to a 8/2 cotton instead of cottolin for weft. It’s a good thing too since I ran out of natural cottolin.

Return to Sender Yarn

Return to Sender Batt

On the left is my Return to Sender skein, blocking on the skeinwinder. On the right is what the batt looked like before I started. The fiber is 85/15 BFL/tussah, dyed with natural dyes by Mary Finley and Roger Salter of Dreamy Goat Design Studio.

I split the batt into pure colors, and stripped out the mixed bits as my “in-between”. Spun the colors in progression as a fine single and plied it with an 80/20 “black” BFL/tussah (SOAR 2009 ? special — Bend, OR). You can see that the black BFL toned down the colors quite a bit, but still quite nice.

Weight: 4 oz. (2 oz. RTS, 2 oz. black BFL)
Yardage: 1,012 yards
Plies: 2
WPI: 44

I have one more gallery submission for the Return of the Return to Sender (yarn spun for the 2010 CNCH), but I forgot to photograph it before sending it on. I used an alternate treadling to Floral Dance with my 2 ply yarn and turned it into a sketchbook cover. Probably subliminal. I’m not that happy with the cover. I will likely re-do it after the conference.