The midnight magic monkeys were at work last night–and they brought me this! My beautiful hat is finished!
Yessiree, this was definitely not a one-day project, but it was worth the wait. Out of curiosity, I kept track of how many yards of “twine” I made and used in order to complete this project. C’mon, guess how many…!
After I started this project, I stumbled across a great website/blog about all things crafty, who just so happened to be hosting a recycled crafts challenge. So I’ll be entering my hat in their Whiplash contest.
To pick up where I left off, I was quickly realizing what a task it was to make twine by de-tangling and then twisting together the used masking tape. But I got a rhythm going, and pre-made a bunch of the twine in the three different “colors” that I was using.
I discovered that by manipulating the tape in certain ways while twisting, I could control which paint color appeared on the top the most, therefore “coloring” the twine a certain way. I gradually added row after row to my creation, twisting wefts ’round warps till the cows came home. And believe it or not, I was quickly running out of tape to make my twine!
In general, I learned how to twine by following the weaving instructions in a book on how to make a circular twined floor rug. To turn mine into a curvy hat instead of a flat rug, I added spokes to the weaving pattern in different manner to make the rows of twine bulge in certain spots, making it certainly less floor-worthy!
After I finished the edge, I had some little scraps that I decided needed to be made into a bow for the back of the hat, so I re-twisted them into bigger pieces and had enough material for the vertical warps. I mean, while we’re at it, lets just go over the top with this thing!
This picture shows the little makeshift loom I put together, and the start of a rectangle shape for the bow. The entire hat is made from the recycled Safe-Release masking tape, except for a few bits of wire that I inserted into the weave in places to help the hat keep it’s shape.
I still can’t believe what a huge unorganized pile of “garbage” this was before I started. (Lemme see that picture again…)
In the end, I used up the entire pile except for two handfuls of tape trimmings. The result shall be called the “Safe-Release Hat.”
So there it is, in all it’s glory–all 113 yards of it!
wow, that’s really clever
Lovely hat! Perfect to block those sun rays…very inspiring!
fantastic!