Summer Stashbusting with Shaped Looms
We have another quick, easy and fun fibre project for you this week – animal frame weaving! A great grab and go kits for you and the kids!!
These small and medium sized sheep and llamas are cute as a button and great summer stashbusters. We also have a rainbow of fibre bundles from Sarah Elizabeth Fibre Works ready to go in both small and medium sizes if you need to augment what you already have on hand. These sweet little looms are an easy weaving project to do with kids and are also highly portable. We haven’t tried working on our small weaving projects while picnicking (yet), but we’re convinced it would be fun!
The sheep and llama looms are laser cut from 3mm birch plywood and are custom made for Sarah Elizabeth Fibre Works by a company in Rossland, BC, directly from her own hand drawings. The small size looms are 5″x8″ and the medium size looms are 9″x16″.
Here’s the medium sheep loom with a medium sized fibre bundle.
Small frame loom weaving doesn’t require a lot of supplies. Here’s what we recommend you have on hand:
- A pair of scissors
- A medium/large sized darning needle
- Strong cotton thread or wool for your warp fibre (you will have to keep the warp fairly tight so try not to use a yarn that might break or fray if pulled tightly)
- Roving, odds and ends of yarn in your stash, or other fibre to make your project look exactly as you’d like it to
- Downloading the instructions from Sarah Elizabeth Fibre Works as a guide
The instructions give you a step-by-step picture guide on how to warp your loom, which will set you up for success when you start weaving. It also gives you lots of inspiration for different weaving techniques to try in your piece like tabby weave, stuffing, rya knots, bubble weave and soumak stitch.
Warp threads done and ready to weave!
It’s easy as can be to get the warp set up on your small loom. Make sure not to pull too tightly on the warp threads to avoid causing the loom to bow. Once your warp is in place, let your creativity run free! We found that weaving with 3-4 strands of different weight yarns helped give our llamas lots of dimension and fluff. You can try high contrast or low contrast colours together, adding different materials than yarn or wool, and really anything else that you can think of.
Much like the other fibre projects we’ve been highlighting over the past few weeks, there are no mistakes to be made here. It’s all about playing with colour and texture! There were more than a few times where we tried something that didn’t quite work out and we went back to try something new.
Little llama all done!
We opted to do lots of bubble weaving and stuffing for our llamas to give them that fluffy look. If you’re going to embark on this project with kids stuffing, tabby and bubble weaving are all easy weaving techniques for them to experiment with.
Medium llama all done!
It’s time to dig out all those little bits of yarn that you have leftover from other projects and to finish them up in an easy one-day project. As we start to think about fall sweaters (is it ever too early for that?!), what a great way to tie up all your loose ends!
Sarah Elizabeth Fibre Works is based in Rossland, BC, and we are lucky to carry Sarah Elizabeth’s Easy Eco Wash, Silk Linen, batts for spinning and felting, and a number of kits from her (like felted soaps, macrame plant hangers, and macraweave kits). If you are new to her yarn, fibre and kits, check them out in the online store, you’ll be glad you did.
So cute!