Finally bit the bullet & bought a martial arts fan, which has steel tangs & a gosh awful blue satin material w/an equally awful dragon/yinyang design. I've been scouring the internet for months & the only choice is red or blue cheesy satin.
Is it possible to replace the fabric w/something not so atrocious? What kind of fabric would be suitable, maybe an oriental brocade to emphasize the martial arts background of this fan? The fabric is glued to the tangs. I also need to make a matching holster for it as it doesn't have a loop.
What type of material are you planning on using, the oriental silk that you canget from like Joannes or real silk? I heard that real silk is a bear to work with but I could be wrong, and if you can get the old material off the fan in one piece there is your pattern. If it were me I would stick to the same thickness as what the fan has already, unless you never plan on closing it again. Just my 2 cents for what they are worth. Wish I could help you more.
Is your fan something like these Taffy?
http://tinyurl.com/64zmyq
I'd think that would be simple enough to recover. If you are artistic enough you could even recover it in a simple black and paint your own design.
Yup, the "kung fu" fan is what I bought. I peeled the original icky fabric off, replaced it w/what Joann's calls "sari" fabric - blue/antique gold scroll lightweight satin - & glued 1/4" double fold bias tape on the bottom & top, & glued the whole magilla to the ribs. I threaded 1/8" blue ribbon through antique gold lace trim & glued that to the top of the fan. Not perfect by any means of the word, but many times better than it started. Alas, the bias tape made it too fat to want to close completely so I'll be replacing it w/a folded ribbon.
Will be haunting the leather shops at TRF this coming weekend for something holster-ish in which to stash my personal cooling system/kilt blower.
Ravenswood has holsters and lots of other leather holder things. Bet they have something that would work. Maybe a dagger frog that laces (rather than buckles) - you could adjust it to fit around.