Simple Weaving

Children love to weave...there's something about the in-and-out, back-and-forth motion that is soothing and creative at the same time. Here's a verse/song for winding yarn onto stick shuttles:

Up and down

Up and down

We are making figure eights

Up and down

Up and down

We are loading shuttles

Don't have a loom? Floor looms and table looms can be a bit pricey. Potholder looms, Hazel Rose looms, Sprang looms, and other small looms are wonderful options...or, you can make your own loom out of cardboard to create pouches, pencil cases, and cup cozies.

Never throw away a coffee sleeve again! They make wonderful little looms. The key is to cut an odd number of slots. Joey is shown here weaving with a naalbinding needle, yarn, and a coffee sleeve. She then crocheted a flower and we put it on a glass jar with crochet hooks in it for display.

And, for the young ones, a pine cone, yarn and beads is a simple, but beautiful weaving project. This may be incorporated with a nature walk to find the cones, a winter poem or song, selecting winter-colored beads, stringing the beads, weaving in spiral, and observing how spirals occur in nature. It makes a cute little gift, tree decoration or addition to a nature table.

Weaving with Children

Weaving can seem daunting, especially if you are picturing weaving on a large floor loom (like this one that we have for sale...hint, hint!). With children, the best way to start weaving is with a simple, homemade loom. You can make one out of cardboard and yarn or string, like the one Joey is weaving a pouch on, below.

If you spin or dye, you can create a family weaving project with your own yarns. We wove a table runner out of our handspun and dyed yarns from the Griffin Dyeworks dye & fiber retreat from last year (see pic at the top and under Table Loom, below).

Some other options for weaving with children are....

Small Looms

http://www.hazelroselooms.com/weaving.html

Pin Weaving

http://www.wefttomyowndevices.blogspot.com/

Table Loom (Knitter's Loom)

http://www.mielkesfarm.com/ashford/ash_weaving.htm

Inkle Weaving

http://www.palmerlooms.com/

Card Weaving

http://www.palmerlooms.com/

Nature Weaving

Forked Stick, Yarn, Pine Needles

Some places to get weaving inspiration, ideas and help:

www.ravelry.com

www.weavolution.com

http://interweave.com/weave/

Lucet - Making a Cord

Children love using the lucet -- it's easy and rhythmic! Similar to spool knitting, the action consists of creating loops from some type of fiber strand (yarn, string, etc.), and lifting loops off. It's a great way to introduce kids to fiber arts before learning how to knit or crochet, and it's also fun to try even if you are an advanced knitter.


Lucet dates back to the Viking era. They were commonly used throughout Europe until the 16th century. Since we've been covering the Middle Ages this year, it was the perfect time to pull out the lucet!

The resulting cord can be used to make jewelry, snakes, bodice lacing, cords for flute cases, purse handles, bookmarkers and more!

Having bobbins for your twine, yarn, cording or string is a nice option, especially if you end up using more than one fiber. Our favorite place to purchase wood lucets and bobbins is Griffin Dyeworks. Wonderful prices, great service, and quality lucets.

Having the lucet out for a couple of months in the "Dell" was a nice way to keep hands occupied or soothed, as needed. Everyone in the family did some lucetting at some point! The resulting cord made a beautiful bookmarker for our Norse mythology book.

A great way to start is by watching some YouTube videos. Here is our favorite tutorial video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y5K7FiT2Og

If you learn to lucet, let us know about it!

Natural Dyeing

We learned to dye fibers naturally with plants a few years ago at the Griffin Dyeworks Dye & Fiber Retreat in Castaic, CA. What fun! Camping, pots of steaming dyes, people spinning and weaving, crocheting and knitting...kumihimo, lucet, Viking whipcord braiding, felting...fiber arts and fun! We definitely will be going to the retreat again this year (it's in May).

Natural dyeing is a wonderful way to use what nature provides while creating a rainbow of beautiful colors! We have dyed yarns, fiber and fabric with indigo, brazilwood, kamala, onion skins, berries, walnut shells, lichens, and more. During the 2007 retreat, we dyed a variety of our handspun and other wool yarns with natural dyes, brought them home, and then wove the yarns as a family into a beautiful table runner.

At home, we dye simply with herbs, plants, fruits and roots. This week, we dyed silk play scarves, silk ribbon, silk cord and wool yarn with tumeric (vibrant yellow), brazilwood (orange), and blueberries (blue/indigo). The brazilwood batch was initially red, and then we added a bit of vinegar to set the color and the batch turned a lovely light orange! Sometimes the color surprises that occur are the most fun. The blueberries dyed very well this time. What a treat! We've decided to share some of our dyed objects in our Syrendell Etsy shop. The rest are either serving as capes or forts or decorations around the house.