One goal I had set for myself after my trip to CNCH was to make a sturdy flute bag. I had one false start with all cotton that ended up as two little bags (got some good practice sewing the bag shape – picture at the end of this post). Then my adventure with mixed cotton and linen (in 20/2 and 16/1) ended up purposed as something totally different than what I had intended. So I decided to up the ante and go back to the 14/2 to get the sturdiness that I wanted for the flute bag cover. Jane Stafford Textiles has a great color selection, and in no time at all I had the linen and a warped loom.

Linen so far is my favorite fiber to use with deflected doubleweave. There is something about the crispness while weaving that keeps me thinking that the project will turn out ok, no matter what happens in the meantime. Euroflax 14/2 is a great weight to use if you want to make something sturdy, like a flute cover, for example. It holds the structure really well, with the added benefit of getting softer but not less strong over time. One thing that surprised me about this project was, after washing and sewing, there was still a bit of a drape to the fabric. A nice surprise!

This is the basic pattern I used. You can tell it was from a book, and now I can’t find it to tell you the name. It’s in a pile somewhere…….

Warping had its challenges. I managed to get all the color alternation correct except for that one twisted section. I did unwind that section and rewound it, but made the same mistake. The funny thing is that it didn’t impact my weaving, although I did add an S hook towards the end of the warp.

No accounting for color truth when taking pictures – the lighting in my room is much different between daytime and evening, with no natural light. But you can see the openness of the weave on the loom. It fills in quite nicely after finishing, even with a hand washing.

This was warped at 24 epi – two per dent on a twelve dent reed. 364 ends, roughly 15 inches wide on the loom. I measured a four yard length, and wove about 60 inches, adding plain weave hems. After weaving, I had enough left over for another piece. To my horror, I had made a mistake smack in the middle of the extra piece. Not to worry, it sewed up perfectly into a cowl where the mistake is not noticeable. You could even call it a design separation.

Finished flute cover, with its owner just waiting to jump in. The flute is a Gm made by Charles Littleleaf from Warm Springs, Oregon.

Ignore the woman behind the curtain – this is the finished cowl. I’m really happy about the drape!

As promised, here is the picture of the cotton “little bag” experiment. I had started at 12 epi, one per dent in a 12 dent reed, then ended up re-sleying to two per dent. End count was 144. I had thought an open sett would work, but I have to re-think the approach on a twill with a plain weave stripe. You can imagine that they are sturdy.