DIY Weaving Club: Updates

• April DIY Weaving Club bumper bundles are in the post today!  (So UK members should get their bundle tomorrow, and overseas in about a week.)  I’m really pleased with this month’s bundle, so please let me know what you think when they arrive, and how you get on with any weaving you might do!

Click here if you’re not a DIY Weaving Club member, but would like to join!

• Subscriptions are now being taken  throughout each month for despatch in the first week of the following month, so subscribe from April 1-April 30 & receive your first club bundle in May; subscribe from May 1-May 31 & receive your first club bundle in June (and so on).

• From now on, all new members will receive a weave-able club membership card with their first monthly club bundle!   (Current subscribers will receive a membership card if they re-subscribe after the initial 3 month period.)

What are you weaving?

Okay, we all know I’m moving house soon & have forbidden myself from beginning any new weaving projects 😦 – but what’s your excuse?

I just had a lovely email from one of my Etsy customers, Angela Baty, showing me the cute little pouch she wove (left) after buying a DIY Play Your Cards Right Kit.   She used a self-striping knitting yarn, which is a great idea if you have some lying about, as it saves changing yarns every time you want a new colour (and saves tucking in so many loose ends).

If you’re very patient, you could try weaving with a patterned sock yarn, but it would take FOREVER to weave!  But if you do have the patience, and you packed the yarn firmly, you would have a very sturdy little pouch at the end of it!

So what are you working on?  I’d love to see photos, whether you’ve woven something from a TangleCrafts kit or followed one of my freebie patterns.

And please let me know if you come across any anomalies in the instructions, whether it’s a typo, or just plain wrong!  One of my DIY Weaving Club subscribers, Arteth Gray, found that the glue I suggested wasn’t strong enough to hold the comb/board loom together while she wove.  I suggested instead using gaffer tape to hold the comb in place (not very pretty, but very strong & practical); but Arteth said “I tied the comb on with some embroidery thread, and that seems to be working well” – so there’s another tip for you!

Weaving frustration!

With a house-move looming on the horizon, I am really reluctant to begin any new projects.  This is just asking for trouble, of course.  I keep seeing things that inspire me!  I already have more ideas than I have time to put into practise, and putting projects on hold for a month or more just means that I’m going to accumulate even more of a backlog!

I posted a while back about a woven book cover which has given me various ideas that I’ve not had chance to explore yet.  I also recently discovered this cool project at Dollar Store Crafts for turning a rag rug into a bag.  I check this site regularly, as it frequently suggests original & unusual ways for re-purposing everyday stuff.  I have to say, I have not yet found a pound shop in the UK that sells these woven rag rugs, but I have seen them relatively cheap in the past.  Anyway, I would feel like I was cheating if I made one of these, because – well, I’m a weaver, aren’t I?!  So finding this project has inspired me to get weaving myself.  I actually have a mousemat loom (yes, just as it sounds: a mousemat with a comb glued along the top) warped and ready to weave, but I’m trying to be good, because I know it will take longer than I anticipate, and I really need to motivate myself to get packing, rather than allow more distractions… 😦  But there’s a cunning idea I’ve thought of but not tried out yet, so it’s definitely high on my list for getting around to, after the move…

I’m really itching to get weaving again.  Oh, it’s frustrating!  Maybe if I’m really good & get everything packed up within a couple of weeks I will allow myself a little project  break regardless…

In the meantime, I recently treated myself to the complete set of back issues of Croq Zine.   The political slant of craftivism scares me slightly, but I’ve not been scared by what I’ve read so far.  Well, of course, it has just given me even more ideas to store up…  But at least it only involves writing down some notes (for now) rather than getting stuck in immediately.  It would be kind of nice to just sit down for a couple of hours and read through the stack of zines in one go; but that would defeat my you’re-not-allowed-to-spend-time-on-stuff-when-you-should-be-packing rule.  Instead, I have a half hour lunch break, which is actually just right for reading through a few features; and it is also kind of nice to be able to savour it a little, and make my treat last a little longer.

Please help me not have to pack so much by checking out my Re-Housing Clearance…!

How to make a re-purposed weaving needle

My usual suggestion for a makeshift weaving needle is to use a hairclip.  But what if you don’t have a hairclip to hand?  If you don’t normally use them, you might as well go out & buy a pack of needles as a pack of hairclips (although the hairclips would be cheaper).  Where this idea came from I really don’t know, but for some reason it occurred to me yesterday that if you have an old, used-up store gift card, or an expired bank or credit card, you can make a collection of weaving needles very easily, for absolutely zero cost!

Woven bookcovers

Why didn’t I think of this? The notebook covers are made from corrugated cardboard (leftover packaging) and the covers are woven with scraps of fabric. The tutorial shows you step-by-step how to do it all!
Click here for this very cool project.

Recycle your Christmas cards!

Okay, the 12th day after Christmas has been and gone, the tree and decorations are down, and everything is ready to be thrown out or stored for next (sorry, this…) year.  But wait!  What are you going to do with all those Christmas cards?  Well, you could cut them up into gift tags for the next round of xmas presents.  You could also turn them (or at least some of them)  into a handy D.I.Y. weaving loom!

Find 2 cards that are the same size (or cut a second down to the same size as the first).  Glue them together, using a solid glue stick (eg Pritt Stick) face to face, back to back, or face to back – it doesn’t matter!  Glue down any open edge so that you have a single rectangle of fairly sturdy (and festive!) card.

Now all you need to do is mark & cut notches, and you’re ready to weave!  Follow instructions in FREE How to Weave on Anything PDF, using Christmas cards as your loom!