What's Warped Now: Hawaiian Inspired Scarf

Hey all! My goodness, I am so sorry for not updating since February. Two weeks ago I was fending off a nasty cold and last week I was traveling for my dad's birthday so it was tough to make time for new projects or blog posts. But I'm back now, with some special stuff to share. (Hopefully it was worth the two week wait!)

It's now almost officially springtime, which means cold-weather scarves has gone the way of hot chocolate and snowpeople. But cooler spring weather is still a perfect time for looser-woven scarves. Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend the Philadelphia Flower Show, the theme for which this year was Hawaii. The floral arrangements and displays were absolutely gorgeous, as they are every year. Take a look below:


The above image was made using entirely natural plant material-- no dyes or anything! Pretty amazing, huh?


Beautiful bright floral display.


Single cut flowers were kept alive and blooming by sitting in little bulbs of water. I thought this display was really neat!


Some of the exhibitions were tiny. In fact, this one's theme was "Tiny Bubbles."

And thanks to my visit, I got some tropical inspiration for a new loosely-woven scarf that I'm starting on right now. It's not on the loom yet, but I'm in the process of designing the warp using yarn I have left over from previous projects. This is the really fun part for me, because it's a challenge to find the right balance of colors-- what seems like a random selection of colors, weights, textures and order of yarn for the warp actually wasn't random at all, but mulled over considerably (here's where being obsessive sometimes can really come in handy, hehehe.) Hopefully in an update soon I can post about how well this one's coming along!



And, as a bonus sorry-I-haven't-updated-recently treat, here's a detail of a scarf I finished in between napping, drinking my weight in iced tea, and hacking up a lung two weeks ago. I revisited the vanilla-chocolate-strawberry theme again, but this time added a little sparkle!



Thanks for visiting, and I promise to be back next week (if not sooner)!

My First Woven Bag!

Remember this project? Well, a couple weeks ago I turned the tapestry into a bag.

I started with a piece that, once off the loom, looked like this:


Then I bought some fabric from a very helpful lady at one of many fabric stores in the fashion district in Midtown, and sewed the fabric onto the tapestry as an inside lining for the bag.


Then I folded the tapestry up onto itself to create a front, back, and front flap. I then attached a button to the front, which would get a corresponding loop on the front flap for closure.


For the strap, I took leftover yarn from the same skein I used for the bag and braided it together.


I then attached the completed strap to the body of the bag using leftover yarn from the same skein.


Here is the bag with the open flap. You can see the loop that is used as a closure for the button attached to the body of the bag.


Here is the front of the finished bag. I love how these colors work together!


Here's the back of the finished bag. It worked out nicely that the front of the bag and the flap of the bag had similar color tones, and the back of the bag has some different but very pretty lighter variations.


And this is the end result!


It was a lot of work, and there was a bunch of trial and effort, but it was worth it. I'm really proud of this piece-- my first project on my tapestry loom and the first bag I've made out of woven materials since I was in college. I plan on making more, so you may see some similar ones on the blog soon.