Scarf 63 & Scarf 64 Get Married

Last weekend I went to Vermont to celebrate the wedding of one of my dearest friends.  It was an absolutely gorgeous weekend of tranquil scenery and lovely new friends.  Here we are with the happy couple, standing in front of Sunset Lake, where the wedding was held.  (And yes, I admit, this photo does make us look like we're auditioning for roles as hobbits and giants.  Let's just say there's a little height difference.)  

These dear friends live in Boston, so naturally I wanted to make them scarves as a wedding gift.  She had been weaving when we got married and made us the loveliest throw pillows, so it was fun to weave her a wedding gift in return.

Knowing they liked deep, warm, earth colors, I started by yarn shopping at Gauge Knits and picked up some rust and eggplant and red and brown yarns.  I started with Scarf 63 for the groom and decided on stripes.  I alternated orange and red stripes with a thin line of dark teal running between them, and used a deep, dark brown as the weft yarn (the one that goes side to side) to tone everything down a bit.  

Here's Scarf 63 on the loom.  Below you can see it all woven up.

For the bride's scarf, I went for a lightweight ruffle.  Using the same red wool as Scarf 63 and a mohair/silk blend in the same rusty orange color, I added in a stripe of dark, eggplanty-purple.  Hers was woven in a thinner stripe, with alternating purple and red, with just a few lines of the orange mohair on the end for a frothy look.  I spaced the stripe yarns farther apart than usual so the scarf would have a gauzy openness and stay very lightweight.  I used the mohair as the weft (side to side) yarn, so that the whole thing is barely held together with these very thin, fuzzy threads.  

After  weaving it, I carefully pulled the threads along one side to create the ruffle.  The openness of the weave kept it from being too bulky, but the ruffle still provides the dimensionality that I like.  I hope she does too!

I know I'm a sap, but I love the Beatles' song When I'm 64 and am so pleased that this love scarf happened to be my 64th!  

Scarf 20: Texas Landscape

Today I finished a scarf that I designed for the Texas Museum of Fiber Arts. I submitted it for an exhibit called "Texas by the Yard and Yarn - Texas a Fabrication." It will show at 100 Congress (the perfect location for 100 Scarves, right?!) in October and November. It's probably very ambitious of me to believe I might get in, but we have to dream, right? As Isabella Stewart Gardner said, "If you don't aim high, you can't get there."

The design represents the Texas landscape - the rivers running through the hills and mountains, then flattening out and eventually running into the Gulf. It's my first design that's meant to represent something else, and it was an interesting creative challenge for me. It began almost 10 feet long and then I used the same ruffling technique from Scarf 17 to create the hills and mountains, leaving it just under 6 feet in the end. I ran a little line of extra shiny blue through the deeper blue cotton to create a sparkling effect in the river and ocean.

A combination of two variegated yarns made the forests and plains - one in various shades of brown, the other browns and greens. I used the same weft yarn for the whole scarf - a juniper green cotton.

My ultimate goal is always to make a scarf that will feel good and look good, so I wanted to recreate the Texas landscape within those parameters. I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

Here are a few little moments in the life of Scarf 20.

Henry called tonight from a walk around the neighborhood to say, "I keep coming around a bend or over a hill and seeing a scene straight from your scarf! It really does look like the Texas landscape." Score. :)

Scarf 20 will stay off the market until I find out if it's made it into the show. Wish us luck!

This just in!

Look what arrived in the mail - my tax permit! That's right, folks - it's not all yarns and looms over here at One Hundred Things to Do - we've got some business going on!

But something else was delivered to my door that I'm equally excited about. Can you guess what it is?

It's a fringe twister! It's been taking me an hour or more to hand twist the fringes of my scarves, so I decided to invest in this little doodad. It cuts the fringe twisting time approximately in half, which means I can charge less for the scarf. Win win.

That there's the fringe on Scarf 13, looking all pretty in in brown and green. I don't think you've officially met, so here's a closer look.

Scarf 13 was a custom order - an ultra-skinny, ultra-long scarf in wool and cotton - and was sold on Etsy.

Will the real Scarf 12 please stand up?

+++ Earlier today I published a post all about Scarf 12. If you're getting this via Reader, you've probably already seen it. The trouble with that post is that all the pictures weren't of Scarf 12, they were of Henry's scarf, which I grabbed by accident to photograph this morning. Oops! Here we go again - same story, different pictures. +++

Last winter I made a scarf for Henry (my better half) and everywhere he wore it people told him he looked like George Clooney. Henry looks nothing like George Clooney. What's up with this scarf? Magic, I think. Only answer that makes sense.

Of course I couldn't go too long without recreating the magic of the George Clooney scarf, so that all men (not just my husband) can have the good fortune to go around being mistaken for movie stars.

The secret is a silvery gray wool crossed with a variegated gray and brownish-olivish wool/acrylic blend. The result is a surprisingly sophisticated scarf with colors that shift in the light. Very adaptable, kind of like George Clooney.

Newlin the Cat is getting as close to it as possible so that he might be mistaken for George Clooney too. I don't have the heart to tell him the magic only works for people.

Scarf 12 is for sale in my Etsy shop.

Scarf 6: Brown and Blue and Soft All Over

I tried a new design for the borders on Scarf 6. It brings in a little extra of the blue/green/teal yarn and adds a little something special that's hard to put your finger on.

Subtlety is the name of the game with Scarf 6, who I can see comfortably flopping around an Ivy League campus, surprising those who come near with its tealy charm.

Scarf 6 is currently for sale here, in my Etsy shop.

Scarf 6 was also featured in a Treasury List!