Burlap is a challenging material to work with. It unravels very easily without it's selvage. The natural fibers split and break and shed off the fabric. The burlap that was available in my local fabric shop was terrible, but one of my EtsyMetal friends offered to send me a bit of hers, and I accepted - hoping that it would be better than what I could get. It was. (Thanks, Victoria!). It was very tightly woven, however for the idea I had about playing with the warp and weft of the fabric, and replacing some of them with metal wire. I finally figured out that I could easily and selectively remove threads from the middle of the pieces of fabric with tweezers. In order to keep the remaining threads from coming unraveled, I applied a little super glue around the edges, just where the threads met. This worked great, and stiffened the burlap as well. I wove four flattened silver bits of wire into the warp and weft. The backing is a piece of copper sheet, which had roller print of metal screen on one side, which mirrored the weave of the burlap nicely for the back of my pendant. I oxidized the piece and made scratches in the front to also mirror fabric a little and riveted the burlap/silver to the front. A bit of silver tubing for the bale and a simple silver chain completes it. Also Check out the ring that got the burlap treatment for the RAD project.
Here are the other participants in the burlap challenge:
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