Wednesday 26 February 2014

weaving with a cardboard loom part 2

I've now made two little coasters (and no doubt more to come!) from scrap wool using the cardboard loom I made from scrap cardboard. The blue one I made using quite thick wool, with which it's easier to control the tension, the other one is made using thinner wool, which kept pulling tight and as a result the coaster is a little warped in shape.




I followed the instructions in this tutorial on Instructables. I'm not going to copy their tutorial here, I couldn't put it better than they do!

This is a great way of using up scrap wool and cardboard and the coasters are very useful. You could use them also as alternatives to crocheted granny squares to make a blanket. You could also make a loom of a different shape and make place mats or possible even woollen bracelets.

It's a great craft for kids, you can experiment with using thicker wool, more widely spaced warp threads (the basic lengthways threads laid down at the beginning of the process) and use a shoebox lid as the loom to make it easier to weave the wool through the warp threads.

People have been giving me their scrap wool in the last week or so, with more promised, so I'll be doing much more of this weaving in the near future.

I was also inspired last night by seeing some lovely tapestries and woven items at the Corstorphine Trust Heritage Centre

Meanwhile I've added some more chopstick bags to the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop. You can see them here and here. I'm just now making some similar bags for descant recorders, which I'll blog about and add to the shop in due course.

As ever, red text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

4 comments:

Hootin Anni said...

Love what you've done...and the colors are fabulous!! Oh, and the found driftwood in the post below....like it too!!!

RG said...

A bit misshapen gives them a much more natural look!

Bill said...

a small coaster
made from scrap wool
controlling the tension

There's more than one kind of tension and more than one way to control it.

Maureen @ Josephina Ballerina said...

upside down weaver
controlling the tension
through yoga