Nature Weaving

Weaving is a traditional skill that we have practiced in the past using carboard looms. The completed weavings were removed from the looms, which could be used again and again. 

This time, we decided to make a handmade triangular loom using sticks that we found in our green space. The loom in this case would become a part of the woven art piece.

We first bound the sticks together at the corners. Then, starting at one corner, we wrapped the warp thread across and around the loom to create starburst effect. We could achieve this by gathering all of the warp threads together at the center and binding them with weft (the yarn to be woven into the warp) and then continuing to weave the remainder of the weft around and around the center to create a 'disk' of weft. 

Then we changed colors and/or textures of weft and continued weaving. No tying off or anything, just weaving and hiding the ends as new yarn is added.  

I enjoyed observing the kids' color choices. Some went with bright, showy colors; others with earthy, natural colors.

 

Our young artists were skeptical of this whole idea at first. Circle weaving in a triangular loom???

Binding the loom together was challenging, and wrapping the warp thread around the loom was tricky. Unless you had a very knobby stick, the warp thread could slip. If you are working with a smooth stick, one option was to wind the string around the stick an extra time before pulling it across to the other side and continuing.

In any case, the end results were very nice, and the kids were excited about adding additional natural elements such as feathers and tiny pinecones. 

For more about about nature weaving, see our previous Summer Art Camp 2020 post.