Instead of collecting all my gear, sort through them and start packing for vacation, I decided to take a bit of time out over the weekend to make a Monk’s Bag to take along with me to carry all the little things.
I had the rough plans from a weave-along project that the Fiber Artisans are working on this spring.
It’s made with some dupioni remnants I had sitting around. Believe it or not, the remnant was almost exactly the dimensions of the fabric requirements — roughly 11″ wide and 92″ long. So, I trimmed it to 10″ wide (some areas were 10.5″ and some were 12″ so it needed to be trimmed) and then cut it into 1 28″ piece and the remainder evenly into 2 pieces, roughly 30″ each. I used a 1/2″ seam allowance all the way around. It’s unlined, but the silk is pretty strong so I don’t think it will be an issue. Besides, this folds up nicely and can be stuffed into my backpack or purse to be used as an extra shopping bag.
(And no, no Hong Kong seams on this baby. Just a zig zag on the edges before I started sewing.)
I opted not to have a seam at the bottom of the main bag portion because I didn’t want a weak spot at the bottom of the bag where the seam is. I don’t know if this will bear out or not, but that was my theory.
What I learned.
This bag ended up wider than it is tall. Duh. 20″ wide and 13″ tall.
I would make the straps a bit longer. The top of the bag hits me right under the boob area. Not bad, but another 4-6″ might have been better.
I could make some hidden pockets in the top part of the strap by sewing across and put a zipper in.
I consider this as my “muslin” for the real bag. I will take this with me to Thailand this week and use it as my day bag. That should tell me how well the dimensions work for me before I put on a warp.
Very appropriate, don’t you think? A bag make with silk remnants from Thai Silk to make a Monk’s Bag (aka Beggar’s Bag) to go to Thailand?
There’s a set of instructions for a at The Purl Bee. I didn’t follow this one. As I said, I just the rough dimensions from somewhere else and made it up as I went along.
What is Dong Zhi and what do these little morsels have to do with it?
Dong Zhi is the Chinese Winter Solstice celebration. Winter Solstice has been observed in China as early as 2500 years ago. Tang Yuen are little glutinous rice flour dumplings, served in a sugar syrup. Yum!
Have you heard? will be taking donations of handmade items for the during our annual Holiday Potluck on December 15th.
I thought that I would whip out a few quick and easy hats to add to the donation pile. I found a collection of odd balls of handpainted alpaca and this fun and easy hat pattern — . It’s a fun pattern all knit on 16″ circular needles with quick grafting job to close the top and Voila! A hat. And the alpaca is very soft and squishy.
My yarn is a light worsted weight so I had to adapt the pattern to match my gauge to the rough final dimensions of the original hats.
The blue hat is baby sized, and the pink one is somewhere between child and adult sized. I have a lot more of the alpaca to make up several more hats.
"Duet for a Silk Brick" in Interweave Spin-Off's free eBook "A Guide to Spinning Silk Fibers"
Have you ever had the experience after you buy a new car or coat or whatever, then you see that exact same item EVERYWHERE? Apparently, that’s called “Perceptual Vigilance.”
What does that have to do with a free eBook? The photo on the left is a from the article “Duet for a Silk Brick” from Interweave Spin-Off /Spinning Daily’s free eBook, my jacket. When this article first came out (yes, each of the projects in the eBook is a reprint of past Spin-Off articles), I was inspired, but I didn’t really weave then, so I only skimmed the weaving part of the article. My brain looked at the fabric and thought that it was just a weft faced fabric, not satin. Now, with my jacket fabric under my belt, I think I am ready to tackle this one.
