Reptile Inspiration

Recently, someone posted a photo of a San Francisco Garter Snake on Facebook and mentioned

 a local park where you are likely to see them this time of year. A friend posted this to my wall and suggested that it looked like one of my weaving patterns. Then another friend commented that he would pay me "handsomely" for a guitar strap with that pattern. Challenge on! 

Thanks to Dr.Alan Francis of the UK for allowing me to use his photo here. This is the one which I worked from to create the weaving  pattern. You can see more of his great snake photos here:  http://www.gartersnake.co.uk/index.html

This is the strap which I wove. The colors are beautiful! Some of the design elements did not turn out exactly the way I wanted them with the right ratio/proportion of color, still the strap is lovely and my friend is happy. In it I used yarn of several different thicknesses and twists which led to a  more 3-D pebbly texture. All the better! The aqua threads were a #5 perle cotton had to be doubled. The red was heavier (worsted weight) , and the black is my standby, Omega Sinfonia.

The pattern draft looks like this.

True confession: This draft is how I intended to make the pattern. In my woven strap, however, there is an extra turquoise spot on the right side. I didn't even realize it until I was halfway done with the weaving! 

FOR SIMPLICITY OF USE, CONSIDER THE TOP ROW TO BE HEDDLED THREADS AND THE BOTTOM ROW TO BE OPEN THREADS ON ALL OF THE DRAFTS. 

To see more of my custom guitar straps view the portfolio on my website here:
www.WeaverGuitarStraps.com