The dyed twill tape I showed you in October is now a braided strap. I decided to add some color and interest via a running stitch along the full length of three of the strands, with three colors of embroidery floss in the intersection of the sets “colors that work with the fabric” and “colors I already have on hand”: gold, red-orange, and a sort of light magenta. That was a little awkward because of the length of floss needed to avoid having to stop and start in the middle, but not too time consuming. The braiding instructions I used are on T.J. Potter’s site, method 1 of the flat six-strand braid.
The braiding took probably an hour and a half, including machine-stitching the ends. I really like how it looks. To secure the ends I just made two parallel stretches of zig-zag stitch. I was wondering as I went along whether I would need to stitch the braid together at other points, to keep it from deforming, but I think it might be okay. At most I think it will need maybe two lines of stitching across it, splitting the strap part into thirds, to keep the braid fairly smooth without ruining the lovely flexibility of it. It is plenty long to go all the away around the sides and bottom of the bag, which is terrific, and probably with some extra. Unfortunately whatever record I might have made of the length of the individual strands is gone, so I can’t tell you the conversion rate.
I made some inroads on the bag itself in February, until I got to the point where I had to know how wide the strap would be to continue, so hopefully it won’t be too long before the completion post.