Harry's Ribbon

I used the remaining warp from Nick and Cerra’s handfasting ribbon to make my Pakistani friend Harry a bookmark.

This is the whole thing. The warp is 2/60’s spun Bombyx silk; the green brocade weft is my hand-reeled Bombyx silk, and the other colors of weft are Kreinik’s Soie Platte.

This is the name part. Mainly in case Harry wants to use the image!

The knotwork section

The peacock feather.

The feather, closer to. I’m not entirely happy with how this translated to a white ground; I’m used to working the pattern on black, which changes it quite a bit.

And here’s what it’s going to be used as – marking a book.

19 replies
  1. porcinea
    porcinea says:

    *Lovely*. Which you knew. Wow.

    Do you have any images of the peacock feather on a black background? (Details! 4-hole cards? What size? Are those tiny regular interruptions on the border from changing the direction you were rotating the cards?)

    And mostly I just fall over in appreciation of how gorgeous your work is.

  2. Anonymous
    Anonymous says:

    The bookmark

    Hi michael,
    well words cannot express my heartfelt thanx .
    this is so much beautiful i cannot really wait to have it .though it took time its very well rewarding i think.
    congrats on finishing it.
    your friend
    Harryyyyyyyyyy

  3. admin
    admin says:

    Thanks!

    I have an image that contains the peacock feather, but it’s tiny, and doesn’t blow up well. It’s in this picture:

    There’s a different variation on it here:

    The pattern is brocaded over 25 four-hole tablets, and then there are usually 6 to 8 border tablets on either edge. Yes, the interruptions of the border are from where I reverse the turnings.

    This is the pattern output from the computer on black, showing how it’ll look woven up:

    and this is the kind of chart that I weave it from:

    I use PatternMaker to do the graphing.

  4. greyfortholly
    greyfortholly says:

    That bookmark is so pretty! I love your peacock feather. I think of you every time I sort or sell them at the craft store. Once I start thinking about you at the store, the idea part of my brian goes into overdrive, I have learned so much from your posts over the last year!
    Happy 2006! I hope I can share something this year that is as inspiring as any one of your posts have been.
    Squirrel Smooch!

  5. admin
    admin says:

    If you scroll up in the comments, you can see some more info about the pattern, how it looks on black, how the design looks on paper, etc.

    I actually had to redesign the feather for white ground, because it looked very flimsy and wrong. And, of course, the black center wasn’t there!

  6. ladyhanna
    ladyhanna says:

    Can I be you when I grow up? 🙂 Your work is beautiful.
    Double face is next on my “To Learn” list. I would love to make something close to Philip’s ribbon or this sometime in the next 5 years!

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