A Tattered Rustic Hemp Cloth Bag: Heavy and Dense Bast Fiber Stitched Repair

early twentieth century
31" x 9 1/2", 78.75 cm x 24 cm

This is a bag that is woven from dense, thick, irregularly plied bast fiber yarns: the bag shows a flap at the top as it is left unstitched on the left and right hand sides.

The bag is well-worn and shows holes on one of its two sides: one at the top, center and the other at the center, right of the same side.

The mending stitches are marvelous, dense and everywhere. They are done in several tones of crudely made bast fiber yarn which is just beautiful to see: the textural quality of this bag is one of its many beauties.

The warm brownish tone of the bag is also very attractive, and it seems that some of the hand plied fibers used to weave this bag were also used to mend it.

A rustic beauty.