Thanks a lot for all the nice comments they are appreciated and it is going to be hard to let this one go
The brown backing is just silk which is dyed that colour. Shocking price silk these days and never seem to find it in the charity shops any more either but it is worth the money.
The grip was a nightmare, first off i miscounted the stitch holes on each side so hard to start again, sooo i made another and ripped it at the very last stitch!!! So started again all went well until i realised i had put the handle on back to front! Anways i think I can blame that on the very little sleep our 16 month boy gives us
Oh and the string used to stitch was a kind of synthetic something from my local materials place.. tough as nails.