Paper Bag

Last summer, our Guild held a Bag challenge and I started to work on my Paper Bag. At least, that was the intention. I made a trip to Granville Island to visit Paper-Ya. Paper-Ya has almost every kind of handmade paper imaginable...except the washi that I needed. What makes this paper special is that the sheets are pulled with all the fibres aligned in two direction, rather than the regular four. Still, the Hadaura is strong enough to use for paper spinning.

Finally, with a lot of off-and-on spinning, I had enough to knit my bag. I tried several different stitch patterns but the stiffness of the paper yarn made it hard to show any definition. I decided on a simple stockingnette stitch, accented with beads. The beads are added with a crochet hook as I went along. I tried stringing all the beads on first but the uneven joins made it hard to push the beads along.

The bag was finished and I had planned on using an olive green/gold silk chiffon for the lining and the fringe but the whole bolt has disappeared. (Yes, a WHOLE BOLT OF FABRIC!) In order to finish the bag for the Mar 9th deadline, I used a pale gold organza, cut into strips, and the paper yarn for the fringe. The ends were beaded to match the body of the bag. The cords were made with a commercial silk, twisted. Overall, I'm happy with the results but it's not the way I envisioned the bag to look. If I find this bolt of silk, I may change the fringe...just to see what it would look like.

If I had thought of it, I would have taken a picture of the finished bag before dropping it off at the Guild metting but instead, here's a pic of it as a work-in-progress.