Making something really cool out of a warp failure

I have been on a roll weaving hand-painted silk into tapestry cuffs that are backed with ultra-suede and trimmed with beads.  It’s fun, it’s relaxing and I love the final product.  All good things.

This weekend I warped up my loom with the intention of weaving two strips of tapestry for two cuffs.  I was having a great time weaving when all of a sudden, while adding just a little more tension, four warp threads snapped.  Yeah that can be an issue with the Mirrix sometimes.  You can get so much tension that if you go overboard, you can break the warps threads.  Hasn’t happen to me a lot, but I was due for a disaster. So much for weaving two strips of tapestry for two cuffs.  So much for even having one strip of tapestry for one cuff since the pieces was way too short.  And then I got an idea:  What if I extend the tapestry strip with something else.  I thought about beads, but that didn’t seem to fit into the theme.  The light bulb over my head screamed: silk wrapped O-rings which would also allow the cuff to fit a range of wrist sizes.  I then attached the button to another silk wrapped O-ring so it extended farther (this strip was too short by a full 2 1/2 inches.

Turns out I liked it better than the longer ones without the O-rings.  The O-rings make it much more interesting.

I might continue to make my silk tapestry strips shorter and add the O-rings.  Just for the fact that one can then adjust the cuff to one’s wrist size is a big plus since I will be selling these cuffs in a gallery.

What things have you done to turn your failure into a greater success?