Nothing can jazz up a simple outfit like the perfect scarf. And now we’re into the chilly season, the creatively flipped or knotted scarf is more than a mere fashion accessory.

Even a filmy little nothing of a 50s-style chiffon scarf can keep those unpleasant drafts off your neck, while it’s pulling your look together.

Ah, but how do you wear a scarf right — so the local fashionistas don’t point and laugh?

Solution: A quick instructional video that shows you how to wear a scarf 25 different ways…

Yes, twenty-five. Granted, an argument could be made that three or four of these “ways” are suspiciously similar, but that’s getting picky. Point is, there’s enough here to take you through a full month of work days, without ever once repeating exactly the same knot /flip /twist /loop / fling of your stylish-but-practical scarf.

See?

There’s no reason to look like a frump while you’re staying cosy; no need to resort to single-knotting your knock-off Hermes like a kindergarten kid’s knitted scarf, for lack of scarf-styling inspiration — not with the unfairly gorgeous Wendy to give expert guidance!

Next item on the agenda,
stock up on fabulous scarves!

Ideally, you will want to lay in a selection of scarves in different weights — Wendy recommends “light chiffon for Spring and Summer, cashmere for Fall, and wool for Winter.”

I’d add silk to that mix: a gossamer wisp of chiffon or light-weight silk satin, in trendy patterns like the leopard print that Wendy shows; and a slightly heavier raw silk scarf, all slubby-textured and rustic, in a solid colour: rich jewel tones seem to flatter most faces and are a real mood-lifter in mid-winter. Silk fabrics drape beautifully and a silk scarf adds warmth to the back of your neck without adding bulk to make you feel bundled up.

Satin charmeuse, in either silk or a synthetic is always a good choice for a dressier lightweight scarf. You’ll find quite reasonable prices on some fabulous prints in a satin charmeuse scarf too, from Old Masters artwork — think Monet, Degas, Van Gogh — to cool retro patterns, delicate Oriental-inspired prints, and tongue-in-cheek take-offs on the British horsey set.

If you want something of the heft of a featherweight wool but find your skin reacts to wool all up close and personal, a soft combed cotton or even a viscose scarf may fit the bill (though I find viscose gets limp after you have cleaned it a few times — your mileage may vary).

That said, one of my go-to favourite scarves is an ultra-fine wool Mexican rebozo in soft natural pastels I’m not normally drawn to, but couldn’t resist when I found it in a street market in Oaxaca.

Another scarf I wear often is a cobalt-blue length of heavy raw silk that I just cut to length and finished off with a hand-rolled hem (<-- instructions right there, if you'd like to try it yourself).

It would have been prohibitively expensive to buy a scarf like that in a boutique, but as a DIY craft job, it took less than 10 bucks and maybe an hour or so.

So here's a frugal little tip for ya — check the remnant bins at your local fabric shop. Especially just after prom and wedding dress season, you’ll often find all kinds of de luxe pieces on for a song, just waiting to be hemmed or fringed and made into a wonderful scarf… and you now know 25 ways to wear that scarf!

Rebozo photo: Textiles by angela7dreams on Flickr

“Want me to knit you a bacon scarf?” Diane asked, and unwittingly launched my search for arts and crafts with a bacon theme. She said she could probably “fake up” a pattern. Thinking back, I’m not entirely sure whether she planned to knit it from the actual fatty meat product. In which case, er, no…

But this Unsettlingly Real-Looking Felted Bacon Scarf in merino wool is both amusing and completely wearable — at least, in cool weather and possibly not around those of my vegan pals who tend to get queasy at the sight of meat.

By the way, if you just dropped in (hello there!) and you’re wondering what the heck all this pork-related nonsense is about, please do skip back to Virtual Collection: Bacon Bits – Part 1 for the explanation.

It’s as good an explanation as anyone’s likely to come up with… except maybe for Revison3′s Lil Internet Superstar:

But enough of that.
We’ve got loftier ambitions for our pork products!

Bacon in Art and Crafts

(I’m pretty sure that Bacon in Art is an actual Library of Congress catalog heading. Okay, maybe not, but I do remember filing something under Pigs in Art back in my summer-job-in-library days. And yes, it was filed correctly.)

Bacon, when raw, lends itself to weaving and shaping. Cook it and it holds its shape. What better craft material?

Instructables.com teaches you how to make your own fashion-forward bacon placemats, the inspiration for NotMartha.org’s famous bacon baskets and breadless BLT.

Or you can deconstruct your bacon for a home science experiment by making bacon soap (bacon-shaped soap molds not included), though the 2-week wait — to cure the added lye so it won’t burn your skin — may discourage all but the keenest of patient crafters from trying it.

Perhaps we’ll just admire the bacon artworks of others.

After all, even Salvador Dali thought that thin-sliced pork products were worth a place on canvas: one of his paintings was entitled Soft Self-Portrait with Fried Bacon, Basket of Bread… but then, of course, what else is to be expected of the surrealist who brought us melting clocks and Santiago el Grande?

The Bacon in Art torch is lifted high and carried on by the artists of Etsy.com, and here are a few of my current 2-dimensional favourites. (Click each little image to visit the artist’s Etsy shop and get more views and information.)

This is an 8″ x 10″ original acrylic painting… on panel. It was painted for the LA Weekly and appeared in their publication.

~ pamelajaeger

Ever see a cute little pig advertising for some BBQ joint? They don’t want to be there. Trust me.

~ waterbears

As an ‘artist/meatcutter’ I recognized the necessity for meat to be abstracted in order to be swallowed, therefore, it was natural for me to objectify meat and approach it with the same focus as my other still-life objects.

~ mgenomgeno

Title: yummy, sinful bacon, I love you

~ welcometothedoghouse

But the piece de resistance in Bacon Art is in the realm of sculpture:

John Ptak has the competition locked up, and the key was lost sometime back in World War II: that’s about when the fabled fat artist Fleiss created and prospered and wrote an astonishing pamphlet:

In the world of found book objects, few I think are as deeply removed and as deeply obscure as the work by Otto F. Fleiss called White Art in the Meat Food Business. A Practical Handbook for Butcher, Pork Stores, Restaurants, Hotels and Delicatessens on How to Make Lasting and Transferable White Art Decorations out of Bacon Fat Back for Window Displays, Ornaments on Meat Food Cold Buffets and for Exhibits and Advertising Purposes. Enrich yourself with Personal Knowledge.

It just kills me that the time is long past when an artisan could make his way in the world by crafting a perfect 200-pound cathedral entirely in white bacon fat.

I have to thank Amanda for this find, in a round-about way. She got it all started by spotting a pretty pale blue chain-link scarf at Entre Nous, and that was intriguing enough to send me off to tap the great Google machine like Ponce de León ransacking Florida for a magical water source…

• model: Cory Linsmeyer
• photo: Alison Gates

Et voila!

Marley’s Ghost No Clank Chain is the super-appropriate name (look it up) of this knitted chain-link scarf designed by Alison Gates.

Make your own chain with felted or stretchy links, long and loopy or strictly structured, whatever… Alison has generously made her pattern available to all — free — over at Knitty.com!

But wait, there’s more to this story than simply knitting up soft chains to wrap a handsome man (or yourself) in whimsical style…

Alison tells me that Marley’s Ghost is currently appearing at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon, as part of an exhibit there called Touching Warms the Art. Also in the show is a “little sister” piece called Return to Tiffany’s — “basically a small-gauge bracelet version of the original chain, with a little crochet charm on it,” says the designer.

Many of the concepts inherent in pieces of art jewelry remain vague or abstract until the viewer becomes the wearer. But this transmission, and subsequent transformation, is typically not possible in a museum setting, where it’s sometimes even noted that “touching harms the art.” Juried by Rebecca Scheer, Rachelle Thiewes and Namita Gupta Wiggers, the exhibition navigates new territory regarding how craft –particularly art jewelry – can be engaged in a museum setting.

When the exhibit ends, the museum will own Marley’s Ghost No Clank Chain as a part of its permanent teaching collection.

Technorati Tags: crafts, knitting, chains, Alison Gates

If you’re like me, and have a positive talent for letting the end of your scarf trail on the ground or get caught in a car door, a neat little knitted neck-warmer might be the answer. The problem with most neck-warmers, of course, is that they tend to be tight-fitting knitted tubes — guaranteed to destroy any carefully-coiffed hairstyle as soon as you go to yank the garment on or off over your head.

Here’s an alternative design, a much wider tube that wraps like short scarf around the neck and ties in place. Mintyfresh shares her own Bainbridge scarf knitting pattern for the Bainbridge Scarf over at the Pepperknit blog.

Not into knitting? Take note of the measurements and step-by-step instructions, and sew yourself a scarf instead. Chic and cosy, in a fleece-lined silk!

[via Hilde]