Woven Wall Hanging DIY

It's no secret I've been crushing on this woven wall hanging from A Beautiful Mess since the moment I saw it. The weaving craze hit and I wasn't a huge fan, but this! This was just lovely! I knew it would be a perfect project for our new place. As soon as we moved to Korea I found this bamboo runner for less than $5 and knew it would work well. It better reflected the Korean culture than a leather rug and let's be real, where was I going to find a rug like that here? It was perfect as it had space in between each piece, perfect for 'weaving'. I had also brought my crochet hook, so all I needed was yarn and lucky for me Korea is teeming with cheap yarn! I paid about $2 per skein and bought 5 different colors. Altogether I spent less than $15 on this project.Because it was a runner it was very long, so I cut it in half and just used the existing strings to tie it up. I followed ABM's directions and looped the yarn through the slits. I played with different angles/directions until I found the way I liked. This project took wayyyyyyyyy longer than I expected. Way, way longer. Like multiple movies, days of TV watching, nights of TV watching. It was long and tedious. Maybe the bamboo was a little tougher to wrap because it is doesn't give like the leather or soft rugs would. I'm still really happy with my choice, but beware of the time factor.I made a few layers, loved the colors, but did not like how thin the yarn looked. Upon studying ABMs closer, I realized that their yarn was more thick and they used the chunky yarn that had texture, but they also layered and layered and layered. So I went back in and made second rows of colors underneath to 'thicken' the look more. I liked it still, but it wasnt quite enough.After a friend's opinion I went back in hard-core and added a ton more rows and layers and mixed colors, etc. The more, the better. It naturally filled out this way and really blends to create a uniform piece. This weaving really pops and makes a statement. It was a very therapeutic type project, more to just keep the hands busy.My pattern really had to rhyme or reason, I started out with a few large chunks of color and filled in where ever I felt like it needed from there. Lots of hanging it up, stepping back and thinking. To finish it off, I braided a bunch of pieces of yarn together to create a hanger for it and used the existing wooden edge (instead of adding a dowel like ABM did) and stuck up a command hook. I like this new theme of abstract making I've been on lately...   Ps. Heres a little sneak peek at my new desk (covered in project life spreads)!