Week 2: Weaving
Welcome to week 2 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?
I've got to be honest with you, I haven't done much weaving in my life. In fact, the only weaving I remember ever doing are those God's Eyes that you make with Popsicle sticks and yarn. You know what I'm talking about, right? I think just about every child has made one of those. I was googling some pictures of them to put here so you'd know for sure what I was talking about and look what I found!
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| Tiny God's Eyes by Pink Stripey Socks |
Aren't these the cutest things ever? These are God's Eyes, tiny ones, but still. I remember making these as a child. Lots and lots of them. However, it's been 20 some odd years since I last made one, so my weaving skills are a little bit rusty.
I had lots of research to do. Where do you go when you have to research? The internet! Okay, the library would have been a good answer, too. I remember when the library would have been the only answer. Does that make me old? Probably.
Thanks to Google I found this website. It's full of helpful information for a beginner. That's me!
Step 1: Gather Supplies
If you're a beginner, like me, you might be wondering what you need for supplies. Good news! You don't have to buy any fancy equipment, no searching the internet for hard to find tools. If you decide that weaving is your thing, then yeah, go for it! Buy all the stuff! However, if you just want to dip your toes into the waters of weaving, you can do what I did. Make your own loom! All you need is some sturdy cardboard, hot glue, and a sharp knife. Seriously, that's all.
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| Here I have marked all my lines on my cardboard. The square in the center is 3" x 3". |
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| Here I have glued down some strips of cardboard for a little spacing and I've cut lines in the cardboard for the warp threads. |
All this cutting and gluing took me all of 20 minutes to do and then I was ready to go! I've got my loom, what's next? Thread, yarn, string, fabric, just about anything that you want to weave, really. I went with embroidery floss. Why? Because I have SO MUCH of it. Also, it's cheap and thin. Since I'm using a tiny loom, I thought I'd use some thinner thread.
Step Two: Warp Your Loom
The warp - and that's warp, not wrap - is the thread that runs vertical (up and down) your loom. I gotta be honest here, this was the EASIEST part of the whole weaving process. So easy, I thought, hey, I got this.
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| My tiny warped cardboard loom. |
Step Three: Plan Your Pattern - Or Not
This part was not easy for me. When I first looked into weaving I thought that maybe it leaned more towards crafts and less toward art. Oh how wrong I was. All you weavers out there, I am so sorry I ever considered your masterpieces any less than the art that they are. In my research I learned that weaving has been important in many cultures. The patterns meant different things, the designs told stories. Do all the designs have to tell a story? No, of course not! Go abstract, make whatever you want! For me? I wanted my design to have some meaning to it. I looked into Norwegian weaving for some inspiration. I'm proud of my Norwegian heritage and I wanted to weave something to represent my Nordic side.
Hahahaha. What was I thinking? Did I forget that I'm a beginner and I have no idea what I'm doing? These are not simple patterns. Beautiful, but not simple. So... on to idea number two...
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| Norwegian - Scandinavian - woven heart basket. |
I took my inspiration from a Norwegian woven heart basket. These are typically made at Christmas time and hung on the Christmas tree. Children make these things. How hard could this possibly be to weave on a loom?
Hahaha.
Step Four: Adding the Weft - the actual weaving part
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| Here's me getting started, thinking this is super easy to do. |
Four HOURS later....
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| What am I doing?! |
I seriously thought this was going to be way easier than it was. I mean, it's only 3"! I was expecting to be done in no time at all. Ugh! At this point I am regretting my decision to add weaving to my list... I don't know what I'm doing. You see that big knot there? How did that even happen? I don't know!
Three more hours of work later...
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| Can you even tell what this is?! |
Halfway through the cream color I was thinking I knew what I was doing now. Nope. Those two halves of the heart are NOT equal.
And ONE MORE hour of work...
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| And DONE! Well, with the weaving part at least. |
Phew! I made it! I don't know if you can tell, but I really got mixed up with my pattern here. Just kidding, of course you can tell! I got frustrated after a while and abandoned my pattern. I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I blame math. Math is hard.
Step Five: The Final Step
The last step is to remove your weave... is that right? What do I call the finished thing? I don't know. I'm going to call it a tiny tapestry. Okay, last step - remove your tiny tapestry. This part scared the daylights out of me. What if I cut all the warp threads and the whole thing falls apart?! I was brave, though, and I did it! I didn't get any pictures of it right after I took it off the loom - I was too worried it was going to fall apart. I just skipped ahead to tying off the ends.
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| Tiny Tapestry - DONE! |
After another HOUR of tying off the warp threads and weaving in the ends of the weft threads I was finally finished. Yay! This whole project took so much longer than I ever thought that it would. There were times when I thought I was crazy for doing this, but I powered through it and I'm glad I did. It's not perfect in any way, but I am proud of my tiny tapestry.
On to rating weaving...
Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.
Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.
Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.
Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?
Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium
So, for weaving my rating is: 15
Ease of use: 2
Is this easy to do? Yes and no. I think that if I had done a larger loom with thicker yarn it would have been easier. I also think doing a simpler pattern would have made it easier for a beginner like me. Overall, I think anyone can try weaving. Just be prepared to spend some time on it. A LOT of time.
Affordability: 5
I don't think this could have been any cheaper for me. I used cardboard from a box I already had (thank you Amazon). I already had the embroidery floss. My whole project took up less than two skeins of floss. At most, that's $1.00. Like anything, though, you could spend a lot of money on supplies, equipment, and tools. If you don't know if you'll enjoy weaving or not, it's inexpensive enough to try it out.
Accessibility: 5
You can get cardboard and floss, thread, yarn anywhere you look.
Fun to Use: 3
I have mixed feelings about weaving. It was time consuming and frustrating. But in the end, I was very excited to have my finished project.
If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...
If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!
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