Trend Alert: Two Tone Yarn Wall Hanging

It’s hard to believe that it has been over a year and a half since the blog police stormed Plaster & Disaster Headquarters and demanded that we make a wall hanging out of yarn or risk being kicked out of the blogosphere.  That was a close one!

Fortunately for all of our dedicated, fans, we gave in and have since stayed in good standing in the DIY blog world through adherence to the major trends.  We’ve brought you record collections, subway tile backsplashes, navel-gazing about bookshelf styling, wallpaper removal, a DIY chandelier made out of corks painted rose quartz and serenity, and even a surprise purchase of a house.

But through all of these forward-thinking taste-making projects, the yarn hanging idea has stuck with me, and I had to make another one.

When I planned out the first one (which still adorns the wall of my office, one of the few “finished” rooms in the house) I had intended to square off the bottom edge, but ultimately decided that I liked the looser, organic look of leaving it raw.

So stuck in my head was the idea that I could do something fun by cutting the hanging yarn into a pattern.  I wanted to try it out.

Supplies for this experiment were extremely cheap.  I picked up an 8″ metal hoop on amazon (affiliate link – read our policies) which was only $5 when I bought it and now looks like it is on sale for $2.  Otherwise, I used yarn that I already had.

I used blue and yellow because I was considering hanging this piece in my bedroom (even though I’ve now decided not to) and because they look awesome together.  (Incidentally, those were also my High School colors, but I can tell you with 100% honesty that didn’t play into my decision making process at all.)

I knew that I wanted the blue to hang down the back from the top of the hoop, and also show below the yellow, so it had to be significantly longer than the yellow yarn since it was both starting from higher up and traveling farther down.  Also, because the yarn is strung on the hoop “doubled up” the length difference in the initial cuts needs to be twice as long as you originally think.

To be safe, I measured and tested the lengths before cutting a bunch of them out, ending up with the blue cuts at about 40″ and the yellow at 25″.

I don’t actually have a picture of the piles of yarn cut out (oops) but trust me that it is a lot.  It takes more than you think to cover a hoop – especially as I wanted it to feel full and so I was pushing the strands together pretty closely.

I attached them to the hoop by just doubling them over and threading them through.  I was also careful to string the two colors from different sides, as they would hand differently in the final product.

Once it was all strung, it looked a mess – which was OK because I was planning to trim it anyway.  I probably could have been more careful, but I just eyeballed it, using a ruler to overall guide me to reasonable angles and straight lines.  I cut an chevron (+5 blogger points) into the yellow yarn.

Then, I cut a sort-of faceted triangle into the blue yarn by cutting uniform strands at an angle and progressing toward the center.  If that makes sense.  Which it probably doesn’t.  Just look at the final picture and you’ll understand.  Seriously, that is why DIY blogs have photos and not just text.

In the end, I think it turned out pretty good!

I tested it in the bedroom, but it didn’t fit there as much as I had hoped.  Since I have my tapestry hanging in there, I now feel like the rest of the art should be more formal/framed.  With the yarn it was too much fabric type stuff on the walls.

It has landed in our guest room/library for now, and it is great to have some stuff up on the walls in there!

Hopefully it distracts from the rest of the room. 🙂  This space is probably due for a real makeover.

And hopefully I have gotten yarn out of my system, and we can move on to other trends.  Oversized wood bead necklaces, here we come??