Woven Table Runner Project

We finally finished our table runner!  Just in time for Winter.  Here is how we made it:

1.  Spinning:  In the Spring, we spun up yarns out of plain wool on our spinning wheels.

2.  Dyeing:  In Summer, at the Griffin Dyeworks Dye & Fiber Retreat, we dyed the yarns with natural plants. 

Broom & Copper = Chartreuse

Broom & Indigo = Green

Logwood = Lavender

Indigo = Blues

3.  Loading Shuttles:  In the Fall, we wrapped the yarns onto stick shuttles as we sang.

Up and down, up and down

We are making figure eights

Up and down, up and down

We are loading shuttles

4.  Warping:  We found a nice cotton crochet thread that had green, blue and ivory for the warp.  We dyed it in blueberries for a couple of days so that the colors blended well with our yarns.  The ivory parts turned lavender.  The warp thread was then wound into a ball using a nostepinne (this one in the picture is our favorite "nostie", made with reclaimed wood from Hurricane Katrina).  We then "warped up" our Ashford Knitters Loom.  The warp threads are the ones that are vertical on the loom.  They are threaded through the large and small slots on the "reed" and attached to the ends of the loom.  Warping takes time and two people to do it well!

5.  Weaving:  Taking turns each day, members of the family wove stripes with one of the yarns through the "shed" which is space between warp threads created when the reed is moved up or down.  Weaving back and forth created the "weft", or horizontal threads.  Mommy and Wilson made up a song as they wove.

Warp and Weft

Reed and Shed

We are weaving on the loom

Warp and Weft

Reed and Shed

We are learning weaving

We love our table runner!  So far, we have used it for our Nativity set and on the table under candles and food during dinner.  This is our second family weaving project.  We look forward to spinning, dyeing and weaving again in 2010!

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.