At the library today, we are having Civil War Days in honor of the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter. My part in the festivities is to give a demonstration of small loom weaving.
My original plan was to weave a rug out of old bed sheet strips. I am going to use two card table legs for the loom. (Set the card table on its side and warp the two top legs.) Well, the more I looked into various weaving techniques, the larger the demonstration grew. I already had an inkle loom which was strung and partially woven. All I had to do was bring it in.
I found a website in which someone was using a hula hoop to weave a round rug. As I looked more into that, I discovered that round weaving used to be worked on wheel hoops (the kind you see children rolling with a stick in some old paintings).
Following that trail, I ran across fingerweaving, also called Indian braiding, Osage braiding, Chickasaw knitting, or Cherokee fingerweaving. The only equipment that it requires is a stick! I used a pencil. You can take this project on a trip. It's lightweight, makes no noise, can be worked on a plastic straw if you are flying, and makes an interesting, pretty product.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FingerWeaving will take you to a the sharing place for photos and tutorials on fingerweaving. Check http://www.youtube.com/ under fingerweaving and look for sashweaver. There are other very good videos, but sashweaver shows the basic skills.
Happy crafting,
Kathi
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