messenger bag reprise

I mentioned not long ago that I have been commissioned to reproduce last year’s P2P2 messenger bag and that I was going to make a few changes. Most importantly, I wound a shorter, wider warp so that I wouldn’t have to spend hours painstakingly matching the pattern at the selvedges as I stitched two pieces together. I had also used a somewhat bizarre assortment of yarns the first time, some of which are now all used up. So, when I looked for substitutes, I tried to match the original colours but limit myself to a narrower range of fibres.

This morning I was looking at this,

and by 2 pm I had got to this.

I am having a bit of a dither about one section, however. Or two sections, since they are repeated… The violet and gold part (most clearly seen second from the left, right next to the black – which has been added as a border stripe, just for insurance purposes) is one of the substituted sections and it was more of a fuchsia and gold in the first bag. I’m not using the colour terminology in a very precise way, I’m afraid — I just mean that the pinky-purple shade was originally a bit brighter. So when I set up the alternation of the colours, I happily placed the fuchsia so that it appeared adjacent to the red in the next section. Thus.

But as I threaded it up today, I wondered whether the let’s-call-it-violet and the red are now too similar in value. Perhaps I should swap the section around so that the gold appears next to the red instead? This is the sort of thing I could think about for weeks without coming to a resolution — even if I had time to try both options, I might struggle to choose! Mocking it up in Fibreworks isn’t an enormous help, since all the colours come out a bit wild.

Tomorrow morning I will need to commit myself one way or the other — I just haven’t decided which, yet. Wrappings may be called for. Feel free to weigh in with your opinions! I will listen very nicely, then go out and do precisely… well, you know how it goes 🙂

messenger bag reprise” was posted by Cally on 4 Dec 2012 at http://callybooker.co.uk

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8 Responses

  1. Janet in Silver Spring
    |

    Hi, Cally–

    I can see why your messenger bags are in demand. They are great. The violet and red are not too similar (at least on my monitor). However, if I were to change anything, I would substitute a dark grey or deep green for the white.
    Janet

    • Cally
      |

      Now that’s an interesting idea. I can see a whole series of slightly adjusted permutations happening here… However, I don’t have much scope to change this time as the customer wants it as much like the original as possible (although I did offer to make it a bit less… strident, perhaps?)

  2. Laura
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    Don’t over think! And never judge a textile until it’s been wet finished. I’m sure it will be just fine.
    cheers
    Laura

  3. Margreet
    |

    You’ve come this far with your warp, I would just press ahead and finish it as you intended in the first place. Customer’s request ;-).
    You could make more later and play with different colour ranges.

  4. Dianne
    |

    I think there is so much “liveliness” in the whole fabric that the colours will work. Great bag.

  5. neki rivera
    |

    i second Janet. however, if you can’t change could you move the white stripes to the selvedges?
    on the other hand you should follow Margreet’s sage advice 😉

  6. Cally
    |

    Nope, the white stays where it is! Much too far on to start making big changes, even if I wanted to. Threading violet-gold instead of gold-violet would be upheaval enough – but I’ve decided to leave it. Margreet is quite right (as always!)

  7. Charlotte Engstad
    |

    I think the bag and the colors look great, just go on with it. The color similarity might only be noticed by you, of course it’s irritating, but it’s probably not worth the time.