Warp Speed: Weaving on a Twig Loom

Sunday was an all-about-weaving day for me. First, in my Religious Education (Sunday school) class, we did a lesson on the Gaia creation story and talked about how the goddess Athena taught weaving to the ancient Greeks, from harvesting, spinning, and dying flax to weaving. Then I showed the class my two looms, my 16-shaft Purrington tabletop loom and my child-friendly Harrisville rigid heddle loom, on which I let them all do a few picks of weaving. Next, they got to work on their own weaving project, which I'll call weaving on a twig loom. Following an example I found on the internet, but adapting it to my class and another project I had seen, each child received a loom constructed of two horizontal approximately 8" long sticks from my backyard with 10 pieces of yarn tied vertically between them (next time, I'll double the number of "warp" threads in that space). Then using their fingers as the shuttles, they wove "in front" and "behind," changing colors as the spirit moved them, packing the yarn, or beating, with their fingers. In true Unitarian Universalist fashion, one boy never altered his back-and-front pattern so that he wasn't really weaving but, despite our suggestions, kept to his plan--we do grow independent thinkers! They each took extra yarn home to finish up and then hang them on their walls. Next time, I'll know to leave long ends on each warp thread both to tie them in bundles of 3 or more (I guess a kind of hemstitching) and to leave decorative tassles. All in all, though, it was very successful--even my kiddos wove on a twig loom and had fun! But they liked the big rigid heddle better . . . .

Later in my afternoon weaving class, I had a "midterm": making another warp. It was an excellent refresher and actually made more sense to me the third time around! I even had an observer asking all sorts of questions, most of which I couldn't quite answer, but which led us both to find the answer. As a reward, we all got a few back issues of Handwoven magazine. There is a "final" in two weeks, covering everything, including actually dressing another loom. Should be very helpful.

The only downside is that I have not had a chance to work on Mama's scarf much, because of the sickness in the house and no school/babysitter for weaving time. And her scarf is due, ideally, in two weeks at the final exam. I doubt I'll finish but that's okay. All these tests are in good fun. And I'm definitely having more fun this time around.