scarves

Floral Peony Scarf – Ready to wear!

| Valerie Baber Designs

The new Floral Peony Scarf is now available! One of my newest handmade designs just finished with a peony floral accent. Floral Peony scarf in gray and pink with green leaves in hand painted merino wool is READY to SHIP, other colours may be available. See my Etsy store link below for more information or to purchase.

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com

This design has a wonderful modern style scarf and textured base with floral peony’s adorning this designs adding class and style to any wardrobe. Floral Blossoms finish off the design on the tip of the scarf to add that finishing touch. The blossoms represent new beginnings like the blossoms in spring reminding us of new and beautiful moments to come. A floral accented scarf for winter that can carry you through the cooler days of spring and fall.

On this scarf the peony’s a lovely soft pink and green leaves. TWO BUTTONS ARE ON THE BACK OF THE SCARF TO FASTEN IN PLACE.

The Floral Peony scarf is designed and handmade by myself, Valerie Baber, with high quality yarns. This design is done in a sock weight yarn or fingerling weight yarn to keep it lighter in weight, but still very warm and luxurious to the touch with the merino wool.

Made with hand painted merino wool 80%, nylon 20% (for durability).

All my designs are hand knit and crocheted with great care and durability and can be worn for many years to come. To preserve the yarn and longitivity of wear the design must be hand washed and laid flat to dry.

This style of scarf is great for when you want to add a unique and creative touch to your wardrobe. Adds a stylish essence to whatever you wear.

Other handmade designs that are ready to wear just for you are available on my Etsy store. I only use High Quality Fibres in this Design and always high quality yarns so you can wear them for years to come. Every design is designed and made by myself to ensure excellent quality and a unique style for your wardrobe.

Various crochet pattern, yarn and ready to wear scarves, shawls, hand warmers and more by Valerie Baber Designs are available on my Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com 

Various crochet patterns by Valerie Baber Designs are available at: 

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com or Ravelry www.ravelry.com/designers/valerie-baber and Lovecrafts: LoveCrafts

Follow me on my Instagram, Twitter and here on my Blog for the newest patterns, free patterns, weaving adventure, crochet journey and other fiber related items. 

Have a fibertastic day!

Cathedral Scarf – Gothic Architecture inspired

| Valerie Baber Designs

Gothic Cathedral Scarf with a Architectural Rose Window design from the ART-chitecture Collection, merino wool scarf. This unique scarf is designed and handmade by Valerie of Valerie Baber Designs. This scarf shows the Rose Window from the outside of beautiful Gothic Architectural Buildings and Cathedrals of the past. Made with hand painted merino wool in a beautiful ivory stone colour. Also available in a gray stone colour.

You can order or purchase this design in a beautiful ivory or gray on my Etsy store at:  www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com

The inspiration for this design is from beautiful photo’s a customer sent me shown below (thanks Marie) of the Cathedral de l’Assomption in Clermont Ferrand also called Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption. This beautiful cathedral is a wonderful example of Gothic Architecture with the beautiful stained glass windows, pointed arches, spires and other stunning features. The cathedral is a French National Monument and was built from black lava rock through the 13th and 14th centuries. Built out of black lava stone from a local volcano.

On my Gothic Cathedral Scarf design I placed the 3 small stained glass windows near the point of the arch as shown in the first picture. Floral stone tracery on the outside of the stained glass window and other windows on Cathedrals of the past are often a design feature. I placed quatrefoils that I pulled from another window on this beautiful cathedral to surround the centre flower of the rose stained glass window. The quatrefoil pattern is often seen on many buildings in this era. I also changed the centre flower to a 6 petal flower to fit on the scarf. Changes on my scarf were made and are not exactly as the cathedral in order for me to fit the stone tracery design onto the scarf. I did use other design features on this beautiful cathedral to give the same design essence. The overall raised effect of the stone tracery forming the stained glass rose window pattern is accomplished by the use of the various sizes of flowers. Floral touches are seen throughout Gothic Architecture in the stained glass and stone tracery. So many beautiful examples are seen around the world. I am totally addicted to this architecture style. The amazing and extremely talented people involved in all the aspects of making such stunning designs inspires me everyday.

You can see more of my Architectural inspired designs on my Architectural Designs Page:

Architectural Designs – Valerie Baber Designs

Other handmade designs that are ready to wear just for you are available on my Etsy store. I only use High Quality Fibres in this Design and always high quality yarns so you can wear them for years to come. Every design is designed and made by myself to ensure excellent quality and a unique style for your wardrobe.

All my designs are hand knit and crocheted with great care and durability and can be worn for many years to come. To preserve the yarn and longitivity of wear the design must be hand washed and laid flat to dry.

Various crochet pattern, yarn and ready to wear scarves, shawls, hand warmers and more by Valerie Baber Designs are available on my Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com 

Various crochet patterns by Valerie Baber Designs are available at: 

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com or Ravelry www.ravelry.com/designers/valerie-baber and Lovecrafts: LoveCrafts

Follow me on my Instagram, Twitter and here on my Blog for the newest patterns, free patterns, weaving adventure, crochet journey and other fiber related items. 

Have a fibertastic day!

Waffle Ribbed scarf crochet pattern for Men and Women

| Valerie Baber Designs

Available on my Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com

NEW! The Waffle Ribbed scarf crochet pattern adds a cozy warmth to your wardrobe adding a perfect scarf accent for Men and Woman to adorn their favourite coat. The ribbed texture adds a classic feel to the design with a more modern touch. Wear the scarf with the one edge folded over, both edges folded over or straight up for a different look. Great for Men, Woman and Teens.

Designed with sock/fingerling weight yarn so you can wear it in most seasons. The Waffle Ribbed scarf can also be made in a solid colour, multiple colours on each row, two toned colours, hand painted yarns or a solid coloured yarn to suit your wardrobe and style. Various crochet patterns are available on my Etsy store and Ravelry for you to enjoy making. All patterns are designed by Valerie Baber of Valerie Baber Designs. See my other listings for other great patterns and yarn to make them with. More information about this pattern on my Etsy store.

Various crochet patterns by Valerie Baber Designs are available at: 

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com or Ravelry www.ravelry.com/designers/valerie-baber and Lovecrafts: LoveCrafts

Follow me on my Instagram, Twitter and here on my Blog for the newest patterns, free patterns, weaving adventure, crochet journey and other fiber related items. 

Have a fibertastic day!

HANDMADE scarves are back IN STOCK!

| Valerie Baber Designs

HANDMADE scarves designed and made by myself (Valerie Baber Designs) are now back in stock with many new styles available and more coming soon. I have been busy over the past year working on my pattern writing offering various crochet patterns for you to enjoy and designing new scarves, hand warmers while continuing to learn more about my newest fibre adventure weaving. This week I have added a few of my ready to wear designs to my Etsy store, some are one of a kind. I will be adding various styles including architectural designs, floral, unique, nature inspired, contemporary and modern pieces to my ready to wear collection soon. Link to my Etsy store below:

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com

Crochet patterns are available for some of the new ready to wear designs so you can make your own unique scarf. Others are only available as ready to wear. The Elegant Leaves Designs shown in the first and last photo is available as a crochet pattern. You can make this design with the mini skeins I also sell on my Etsy store or use yarn from your stash. See more on my Etsy store.

I use hand painted high quality yarns as the base for most of my designs with added luxurious fibres like silk, cashmere, sparkle yarns, kid mohair and more in some of the scarves for a special elegant touch. Each item is designed by myself and made by myself to ensure the quality of the garment is excellent. I will be adding new designs often so pop by my Etsy store and take a look at the recent additions.

Various crochet patterns and ready to wear scarves, shawls, hand warmers and more by Valerie Baber Designs are available on my Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com 

Various crochet patterns by Valerie Baber Designs are available at: 

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com or Ravelry www.ravelry.com/designers/valerie-baber and Lovecrafts: LoveCrafts

Follow me on my Instagram, Twitter and here on my Blog for the newest patterns, free patterns, weaving adventure, crochet journey and other fiber related items. 

Have a fibertastic day!

Playing with plaid – weaving a scarf for my husband

| Valerie Baber Designs

Playing with Plaid while I was weaving a scarf for my husband. A personal request from my husband who wanted a scarf in his favourite colour from Sweetgeorgia Yarns Chili Chocolate (this colour is no longer available but there is a similar one). I decided to do a plaid version as if feel it is a nice design for a man but instead of weaving the plaid throughout the scarf I chose to only weave it at the bottoms and leave the middle with a more subtle strip pattern due to the warping. The colours in the stripes are a brown and a beige to give a more neutral effect to the design. The base colour yarn is a hand painted yarn and adds lots of splashes of subtle colour changes throughout the design. I am currently weaving another “plaid” style pattern where the yarn does most of the work because of how it is dyed. I will show pictures of this scarf at a later date.

Weaving with a plaid design is very enjoyable as it is interesting and keeps you focused while weaving. My next goal is to try a much bigger scarf that has a deconstructed plaid essence. The pattern I found was in my Handwoven (handwovenmagazine.com). That weaving adventure is for another day!

Various crochet patterns by Valerie Baber Designs are available at: 

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com or Ravelry www.ravelry.com/designers/valerie-baber

Follow me on my Instagram, Twitter and here on my Blog for the newest patterns, free patterns, weaving adventure, crochet journey and other fiber related items. 

Have a fibertastic day!

Weaving a Friendship together – Friendship Factor Scarf #1

| Valerie Baber Designs

Weaving a friendship together is the first weaving adventure that Lisa, great friend of mine, decided we wanted to start. Since we both live in different countries we could enjoy virtual time together weaving and enjoy picking out a pattern, yarn and colours. Since I live in Canada and Lisa lives in the USA it makes it difficult to get together and enjoy our making our crafts. Lisa is actually the one who inspired me to try weaving (thank you Lisa! it’s just what I needed for my next fibre adventure). I started with a Frame Loom and worked up to a Rigid Heddle Loom. I am totally hooked on weaving and dream of larger 4 or 8 shaft looms in my studio to create on. I have known Lisa for years, but we have never met. We share a love for crochet and now weaving. Our friendship has evolved along with our artistic adventures to new and exciting directions. You never know where life will take you or who you will meet along the way. Lisa and I will be making various projects together so follow along as we jump into a weaving adventure that virtually brings us together from different countries.

The first scarf is the Friendship Factor scarf. We both went through our weaving magazines and patterns and settled on this lovely one available on Handwoven Magazine’s Little Looms edition, Easy Weaving With Little Looms Summer 2020 – Long Thread Media We chose the Plumage Scarf to weave as our first Friendship Factor scarf. The photo below is from Handwoven Magazine (handwovenmagazine.com) and I hope they don’t mind that I used it as I promote this wonderful weaving pattern. If you are looking for inspiration for your weaving project Handwoven Magazine is a wonderful place to start. Beautiful photo’s and patterns as well as history of weaving, artist, yarns and more are in each volume. You can even buy it online so you can look at it on your phone and computer. I love looking through the older issues and seeing how weaving has evolved over the years. This pattern uses Brooks Bouquet as the main pattern. I really like weaving this pattern it is an interesting design yet easy to do. I previous made a different scarf with the Brooks Bouquet in gray that had a lacey effect, but with this scarf the pattern is spaced differently giving a more texturized look.

This weaving adventure with Lisa was a wonderful journey that I was able to enjoy with a great friend. We took time looking for patterns at each end and both ended up really liking this one. I love that we both used different yarns and colours to achieve the scarf we wanted. Here are our thoughts about the pattern:

Valerie: On my version I chose to make it shorter as I wanted a Fall scarf to wear when out for a walk that was smaller in size. I also wanted to try it with two different colours on the warp and love that it added a stripe effect to the design. I used a darker hand painted yarn with softer colour on the warp and a natural/ivory colour on the weft. Using the ivory/natural on the weft had a subtle effect when I washed the scarf leaving the two other colours to stand out even more. I can’t wait to enjoy wearing this one. I will always think of our great friendship and the enjoyment we had making it every time I wear it.

Lisa: For my version, I chose to use two variegated skeins like the pattern called for because I was curious to see how they would blend together. Plus, I thought it would be a fun addition to my winter wardrobe. To choose my yarn, I looked for colors that look good together and looked for a common color to unite the skeins. In this case it was a mint and a light blue that were close in value. I liked this because it was not the prominent color in either skein, it was what I call the “pop color,” or the color that stands out on a yarn skein. This scarf was a lot of fun to make because I had no idea how the colors would come together – it’s kind of that throw paint on the wall and see what happens effect. Lisa Gossman-Steeves (@lisagossmansteeves)

I really like how Lisa’s turned out with all the beautiful array of colours mingled together. It has inspired me to add this scarf to my make it again list but this time longer and perhaps a thicker yarn like the one Lisa did. Our scarves started with the same pattern yet turned out as unique designs. The Friendship Factor Scarf is an example of how two people can take the same idea and make it completely different. That’s what friendship is about. Two or more people with individualities coming together and creating amazing and unique moments, items and friendships. Try a weaving project or other craft project with your friends. See where that adventure takes you and the beautiful way it weaves your friendship together.

Various crochet patterns by Valerie Baber Designs are available at: 

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com or Ravelry www.ravelry.com/designers/valerie-baber

Follow me on my Instagram, Twitter and here on my Blog for the newest patterns, free patterns, weaving adventure, crochet journey and other fiber related items. 

Have a fibertastic day!

Fiesta Lace Crochet scarf pattern

| Valerie Baber Designs

Fiesta Lace Scarf Crochet Pattern is an easy to crochet pattern. Designed with Fingerling/Sock weight yarn. You can use any sock weight yarn. Perfect for the Party of Five yarn shown here. The Fiesta Lace Scarf pattern is designed by myself, Valerie of Valerie Baber Designs and can be worn in many different styles. It’s an easy to crochet pattern. You can use most Fingerling/Sock weight yarns for this design.

Yarn used In the photo is the Party of Five mini skeins by http://www.sweetgeorgiayarns.com in soft merino wool mini skein set. Show in the gradient colour way of light to dark gray to black called Graphite, 3 ply sock yarn weight merino wool. Each Tough Love Sock fingering weight set contains five 105-yard mini-skeins for a total of 525 yards.

Various crochet patterns by Valerie Baber Designs are available at: 

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com or Ravelry www.ravelry.com/designers/valerie-baber

Follow me on my Instagram, Twitter and here on my Blog for the newest patterns, free patterns, weaving adventure, crochet journey and other fiber related items. 

Have a fibertastic day!

NEW Modern Essence Scarf crochet pattern

| Valerie Baber Designs

The NEW Modern Essence Scarf crochet pattern is an easy to make pattern that has a modern contemporary style perfect for any wardrobe. Designed just for you to warm your day with elegance and style. Wear this contemporary scarf on the outside or inside of your coat for a different look. Made with a DK weight yarn to keep you warm and cozy in the colder days. Easy to crochet pattern that is perfect in any colour combination including neutrals, bright and bold or soft pastels. Change the colours so there are stripes of colour or use gradient colours that move from light to dark for another unique touch.

Yarn: Takes approximately 230 yards / 210 m of DK weight yarn of your choice if you are making a solid coloured scarf add a bit of yarn in a contrasting colour if you are making with a different coloured trim. You can use most DK weight yarns for this design just make sure you check your tension if before starting especially if you are using a different yarn. Makes changes at your end if necessary.

Yarn Used: The dark gray scarf is made with 1 skein of Sweetgeorgia Yarns 100% Superwash Merino Wool DK 256 yards / 234 m per skein and the light gray scarf was made with 2 balls of Diamond Luxury Fine Merino Superwash DK 138 yards / 125 m per ball plus a bit of another colour for the trim.

Various crochet patterns by Valerie Baber Designs are available at: 

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com or Ravelry www.ravelry.com/designers/valerie-baber

Follow me on my Instagram, Twitter and here on my Blog for the newest patterns, free patterns, weaving adventure, crochet journey and other fiber related items. 

Have a fibertastic day!

Weaving a Clasped Weft Scarf

| Valerie Baber Designs

The other week I decided I wanted to learn clasped weft weaving. With 3 colours in hand I decided to warp the dark purple and use the 2 lighter colours on the weft. One is hand painted Colour way of light purple, blue and hint of mauve pink and the other a tonal hand painted merino wool in the mauve pink colour. I love using merino wool it is so soft and lovely to wear.

The great part about clasped weft weaving is your free to decide on each row how far to move each colour. You can do so many things with this pattern. Check out the various YouTube videos online for great demonstrations on how to do this weaving technique.

Clasped weft weaving is something I want to explore further in the future. Maybe some mug rugs will be next.

Various crochet patterns by Valerie Baber Designs are available at: 

Etsy store: www.valeriebaberdesigns.etsy.com or Ravelry www.ravelry.com/designers/valerie-baber

Follow me on my Instagram, Twitter and here on my Blog for the newest patterns, free patterns, weaving adventure, crochet journey and other fiber related items. 

Have a fibertastic day!