"A good life is like a weaving. Energy is created in the tension. The struggle, the pull and tug are everything." -Joan Erikson
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My first weave was more basic and traditional with a bit of fun thrown in by using a nonobjective watercolor painting for the strips and a light blue sheet of construction paper for the paper loom. Both the watercolor painting and the construction paper were 9" x 12".
I Painted with watercolor paint on school grade watercolor paper in a free-form fun and loose style, being sure to fill the entire page.
I folded the construction paper in half and drew the guidelines using a ruler, then cut and unfolded to make the paper loom. I used the width of the ruler to make my border at the top as well as the thickness of the strips.
I also used the width of the ruler to draw the lines for my strips on the back of the dried watercolor painting, cut the strips with scissors and began to weave.
After completing the weaving I glued the flaps down on both sides with a glue stick to secure the strips.
completed weaving #1
My second weaving was a bit more advanced. I decided to try the "wacky weave" by cutting the paper loom into designs versus straight strips.
I wanted to keep to the left side of the color wheel for this weave, so chose yellow, orange, red, and a dark pink for my construction paper strips. I also decided to try using a variety of thicknesses. The paper I used was 9" x 12".
After the loom was prepared and the strips were cut I began to weave.
I realized the weave was somewhat plain so I proceeded to use the crazy cut scissors to cut smaller strips and began to layer them into the weave. I was much happier with the result.
I glued down the flaps on the front and back which was more tricky with the added layers. I actually had to re-position one of the strips because it had slipped while I was gluing the flaps on the back.
Completed weaving # 2
The third weaving I tried was the actual yarn weaving, and was excited to realize I did in fact have a loom buried in my storage room, YAY! I added some brown "Knit-Cro-Sheen" to my loom.
I Began the weave with a thinner beige yarn and continued with a variegated larger yarn. I also used a third yarn, which was also variegated but more of a standard size. I alternated between these three yarns throughout the weaving. I threaded the yarn onto a darning needle to help speed up the weaving process.
The finished weaving ended up measuring about 6" x 6". I used the bamboo skewer for the top edge and tied off the ends with knots. The tails were tucked in throughout.
Completed Weaving #3
Credits:
Kim DeKay