I have quite the DIY for you today! I’m so excited to share the wall hanging I made for the dining room renovation.  Originally, I had a few different store-bought options sourced, but wanted to create something special for the space that you guys could also make!

I always like to start a DIY by being totally up front about the effort involved.  When it comes to woven wall hangings, they are typically very time consuming and not super easy.  I made this little one and it was fairly difficult (and didn’t turn out exactly like I’d wanted).  Then, I created a really easy and fast shortcut last year that I loved, but it wasn’t really a DIY, or customizable.

Today’s DIY woven wall hanging strikes a balance.  It’s very customizable, inexpensive, it’s pretty easy, but it is not quick. The whole thing probably took me a full 4 hours. It was really easy and mindless time, however, so I stuck a good book on Audible and enjoyed the luxury of some time working with my hands creating something for myself.

Materials:

• Woven Straw Placemats – These are sold individually in stores, or online in a set of four
• Thick roving yarn (I used Patons Cobbles)
• Thinner roving yarn (Patons Classic Wool Roving Yarn)
• Thin Hairy Yarn (I used Deborah Norville Alpaca Dance)
• Fringe Trim (2″ natural cotton home decor brush trim) – for whatever reason, the picture on this product is wrong, but the description is correct.  I got it in-store at my local Joann Fabrics.
• Sequin Trim
• Yarn Needles

For all of the craft store materials, I used Joann Fabrics coupons (in the app!) and got everything for under $30.

First, I stitched together two placemats to create a large surface for the wall hanging.  I used a plastic yarn needle and a simple cream twine that could be easily covered up in step two.  Which brings me to step two. I took the chunkiest yarn I could find, the Paton Cobbles yarn, and wove it through the twine in one direction, then came back and wove it through again in the opposite direction, creating two rows.  I wove it through loosely and fluffed it up so cover up the seam.

After the two pieces are fixed together and the seam covered up, I measured at 3-ish inch intervals and wove through more of the super chunky yarn to create stripes down the entire surface.  I alternated the stripes in thickness.  Some were two rows (like I used to cover the center seam), some were just one.

After the stripes were woven down the surface, I made fringe for the bottom edge using the Patons Classic Roving Yarn.  To create the fringe, I made 24 knotted ‘fringes’.  I made each fringe piece by taking 4 strands of yarn (each about 15″ long) and knotting them together in the center.

Then, I threaded two strands from one side of the center knot through the edge of the placemat and knotted them in the back.  The other two strands from that side of the center knot just hang down in front behind the knot.  Once all of the fringes are on, you won’t notice them! Repeat until the entire edge is covered in knotted fringe.

After the entire edge is complete, the bottom of the tassels can be trimmed into a straight light or an angled edge like I did.

I considered the thick/thin lines and the fringe to be the base of the design.  After they were done, I just went in with various other yarns and created arbitrary designs.  Triangles, stair steps, straight lines, whatever really.  I filled in the triangles as well.

After my yarn designs were done, I glued some sequin trim onto the surface.  I only have one line of sequins, but I would have done more should I have had more!

Lastly, I used some cotton home decor fringe that I had from my moroccan pillow DIY and sewed it in two places to the surface of the wall hanging.  I just plain old needle and thread for this.

So, you can see from the steps that although no one step is difficult, it just takes some time.  There is certainly nothing wrong with that, however!  Weaving a wall hanging from scratch would take much much more time.  Plus, it gave me a really good project for a rainy Sunday afternoon and gave me a chance to finish my audio book!

What are your thoughts?  It’s certainly going to have a great home in my dining room and the blues will complement the blues we have going on in the living room!