Weaving With Sticks

I think everybody's tried paper weaving, right? Where you cut slits into one sheet of paper and weave paper strips through the gaps. I think it's actually an essential part of Primary School learning. Well, I'd heard of peg loom weaving before, but as a peg loom can be quite an investment, just to find you don't like weaving (not to mention the space it takes up), I'd never tried real weaving. That is, until now.

I attended a lovely event at my local library recently which focused on heritage crafts i.e. traditional crafts, some of them still in use today, others not so. The wool spinning was fascinating, as was stone carving and henna tattoos. What really caught my attention though, was a lady who was weaving using sticks. After a chat with her, where she explained the technique and the history behind it (it can be traced as far back as the early settlers of America), I came away with a set of weaving sticks.

*Hit Me With Your Weaving Sticks!*

Friends, these are weaving sticks. Essentially, they are pieces of dowling rod with a hole through one end, and the other end is pointed like a knitting needle. I had never heard of them until a few days ago - who knew you could weave on sticks? This is a set of five, but you can use two as a minimum, and work up from there.

If anything, it was just really interesting to try the technique, as it offers great insight into how everyday fabrics are made, if albeit on a much smaller scale.

You start off by building the "bones" of your weaving - threading a warp thread through the holes in the top of your sticks, and knotting them together. These determine the length of your weaving.

Then, you simply start weaving at the other end of your sticks. This is the weft of the weaving (sounding familiar, sewing friends?). The weaving will creep up to the top of the sticks, where it meets with the warp threads.

The weaving works up very quickly - I couldn't believe how easily I'd grasped the basic technique on my first try. I then set about playing with different textures.

This is jersey yarn, which I have made from an old t-shirt. I really like the bulky weave this gave, and it was nice and stretchy too!

My first finished weaving :) Now all I need to do is make several more strips and sew them together to make a rug. My mind is actually in overload thinking of all the possibilities and potential this new technique has.

Hmmmm... I feel some weaving experiments coming up!

Have you ever tried weaving before? Any ideas on what I could use my weaving sticks for?