Introduction - holiday crafting on a portable weaving loom
The summer holiday or indeed any holiday are a perfect time for relaxing and exploring new or existing crafting hobbies. We will often have a portable bookmark or square frame loom weaving kit in our suitcase!
Holiday time with new surroundings serves as an inspiration often giving us a boost of creativity. Time away also provides opportunities to try something new with time available for experimentation.
Weaving with a small bookmark, square or circular loom couldn't be more portable providing a mindful and relaxing creative escape. This blog shows a number of examples of woven projects created on recent holidays which we hope might inspire you to have a go yourself.
Bookmark Weaving Loom Kits
Small and portable a bookmark weaving kit can often be found in a TabbyandTweed suitcase. Whilst holidaying in Wales, a charity shop visit resulted in the purchase of a range of odd skeins of tapestry wool which were perfect for weaving. The first two examples below show weaving in colours and shades taking inspiration from the seaweed and the grey sky.
Holidays are perfect to explore new ideas
This square frame weave was woven during a trip to Pembrokeshire.
We were lucky to have some beautiful October weather and the down time provided the opportunity to trial some twill weaving designs. This weave used some scraps of hand dyed yarns in seaside colours.
We now sell a twill weaving square loom kit which includes the frame loom, yarn and instructions to weave a range of woven designs including this twill pattern.
Weaving in circles
The example shown below was woven by a family member who was traveling abroad for an extended break. Keen to take a project with her she was given a circular weaving loom kit with a selection of yarn and fibres with the circular weaving instructions. I think you will agree that she created a simply stunning woven mandala. We loved it so much that we made kits up using the same yarn and fibres that she had used which can be found in our website shop in a range of sizes.
Back strap weaving or belt weaving
Back strap weaving is an ancient craft and is generally a warp faced weave where the warp threads have greatest prominence in the final fabric created.
Small, portable and inexpensive the back strap weaving kit is perfect for a holiday project. Back strap weaving is named because the belt or back can be used to tension the warp threads at one end with the other end secured to a tree, post, table or held by a toe by some weavers.
Using a simple heddle, cotton or sturdy thread and shuttle a belt or strap can be woven.
Weaving the view
This project was again woven during a Wales trip creating a small tapestry with some additional detailing embroidered onto the weave. Tapestry weaving is weft faced so for this weave I used my comb to beat the threads down more firmly than normal.
Time to sample
As weavers ourselves time away is sometimes used to undertake small sampling projects on one of our square looms. Committing a large amount of yarn to a floor loom is an expensive error if the wrong colour, design or yarn choices are made so we often trial or sample ideas first. In this project a range of blues were sampled with only three being chosen for the final weave.
Whilst some of our holiday weaves have been more successful than others the time to relax and experiment is always appreciated whatever the creative outcome.
Weaving kits are available in our TabbyandTweed website shop for UK delivery and our TabbyandTweed Etsy shop for delivery elsewhere.
Interested in learning to weave? Then our workshop page has all the details found by clicking the link here.
If you are interested in keeping up to date with our weaving work then do sign up to receive our newsletter by clicking the link here.
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