Welcome to Creative Friday!
When I was little, about seven or eight years old, my mom bought me a plastic weaving kit. It consisted of a few straight pieces of plastic about the same length as these wooden dowels with small openings on the ends. Long lengths of wool were attached through the openings on the ends of the plastic sticks. Do you remember these? I used to weave myself and my dolls scarves and little carpets and after all these years, I can still remember how much I loved this process of weaving. I don’t know what happened to my little weaving set, perhaps I must ask my mom if it is somewhere in her garage, it’s possible:) Yesterday, I thought it would really be fun if I made my own set using wood. I bought a few dowels and my wonderful man helped me to cut and drill the dowels last night.
We have been having tremendous fun today weaving this rainbow scarf. It really is a wonderful project that anyone can do, even Kye who is 5, sat down and loved wrapping the wool around each individual stick. I am going to cut another six pieces and make a table runner, should be fun.
This is how we made our weaving sticks:
I used a 10mm dowel that I bought from the hardware shop.
We cut the dowel into six pieces, each measuring seven inches long.
Sand off the rough edges.
Sand the one end to make a slight curve.
Drill a hole about half an inch up from the base of each dowel, drill straight through each dowel.
Weaving:
I used chunky, natural wool and threaded it through the holes in each dowel, I doubled the wool and it is about 1 metre long, hanging double. This is what your weaving will go around as you move it down the dowel sticks.
Tie your first colour of chunky wool to one of the side dowels and hold all of them together. This can be a little tricky as nothing is holding them firmly yet, but as you weave they become sturdy.
Once the weaving is about half way up the dowels, you can just gently move it down one dowel at a time. Hold your work and gently pull up each dowel, make sure you leave some weaving on the sticks, don’t move everything down because this will make the sticks loose.
When you want to add a new colour, tie it on at the back of the work and cut the old colour, leave long pieces so they can be sewn in and continue weaving.
Once you are finished weaving, tie the colour to the work and tie the white wool together, through the end of the colourful weaving, leaving tassels, so that it does not unravel.
Happy weaving!
About Creative Friday:
Thank you so much to everyone who shares the love and posts their links to their amazing work:) Please feel free to post your links to anything you have created and would like to share, it can be a recipe, sewing tutorial, knitting tutorial, felting, crochet, crafts, art, spinning, weaving, working with fibre, photography, poetry…etc…
I also love to hear from you, so if you have a moment, please leave a comment:) Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful talent with us! Just add the name of your blog to the widget and then add your blog link with the http:// at the beginning of your link address:) I have added a Creative Friday button on the sidebar of my blog, please feel free to add it to your blog for Creative Friday and link it to http://www.naturalsuburbia.com/ so others can find this space and share their creativity too:)
1. I have started a Creative Friday Flickr Group where you can post your beautiful photos that you link to each Creative Friday, to join the group, please go here.
Yay!! Thanks so much to those who have joined the Creative Friday Flickr Group, it is wonderful to see your photos!
2. If you would be so kind as to link back to Natural Suburbia in your blog post that would be lovely:)
Have a wonderful day,
xo
Linda

Great tutorial 🙂 Another craft to bookmark for trying! Thanks x
Hi linda, its been awhile since i’ve played along, happy friday to all !
x
Wow Linda that is really interesting. Thank you for showing this so detailed!!
Hi Linda! That looks really interesting! I would love to try!
Have a wonderful weekend! x Teje
So pretty and colorful, love it!
What a great idea, you explained it so well, I’m going to give this a try for sure!
Linda–What a wonderful project,, and how cool that you fashioned it yourselves! No overpriced kits for you, you clever Mama!
I have been so busy with schools that I haven’t updated the blog lately. Thanks for the motivation to get something presentable up to share!
such a beautiful colourful project
I have been meaning to try this with the kids for a while, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Thanks for the great inspiration to really get to it. If you haven’t seen my yarn along yet for this week, there were some great comments posted about your patterns. Thought you might be interested in checking them out.
Thanks for hosting.
The colors remind me how much I miss spring. It’s raining here in California…
We’ve got a stick weaving project set out for the kids. It’s been on the shelf for a year now. But they loved picking it up and working on it a little at a time.
I got it at the thrift store already started without knowing if I could start it again. Thanks for the tutorial.
this is gorgeous and I LOVE rainbow colours, thanks for the tutorial 🙂
Wow, what a great concept. Thanks so much for the instructions!
I am blinking. Am I so far removed from the days of having children in my house that I can’t imagine how you have the time and focus to do so much? I think perhaps, yes. Of course, you are a person of remarkable imagination and industry anyway – but it helps to have people around to inspire you, and to fill the air with interaction as you work. I am deeply focused on one or two gigantic projects – have nearly scanned the entire body of family photographic records – a feat which stuns me, actually – but the house is so silent. I do not have as many distractions as I used to, but there is also a dearth of heart in a silent house. I can hear the music in the studio coming through the walls, but that is nothing next to the voices of vibrant children.
Ach. Already this morning I am too philosophical.
That looks amazing! I will put this in my to try list. Thanks!
Thanks for posting such a great tutorial – this will be really fun to try with my kids!
Thanks so much everyone, you are all so kind and thank you for posting these wonderful links on Creative Friday
xo
Hi Linda, I have been making owls lately, cheers Marie
This is great! I’ve never heard of weaving sticks. Something definitely to try.
Love the weaving stick idea. I think we’re of an age but I’ve never seen anything like that. Thanks for the tutorial!
this is incredible! incredibly simple and effective – i’ve never seen this kind of weaving, i’ll try it out with small or mentally handicapped kids ☺ thanks a million for sharing your lovely pics, regards, dana
Oh, how fun! I have some dowel in the garage and I think I’ll go get my drill…er, I really don’t need another hobby, really. Eh, what the hey, it’d be fun to give it a try. It would be a great stash buster if I use a few more dowels and make it wide enough to make trivets. Thanks so much for sharing your projects with such beautiful photos.
The stick weaving looks great, thanks for sharing how to do it 🙂
It’s so long since I joined in Creative Friday, it’s good to be able to today.
That’s wonderful Linda. I don’t know where I was, but I’ve never seen this kind of weaving before! Maybe it was after my time. 😉
I didn’t have anything to share today but always love checking out what everyone else is up to. Especially you!
Blessings, Debbie
This is a great tutorial. A perfect project for kids too without getting frustrated with the weaving like they can on a peg loom.
I haven’t ever seen that before … wow!
What a great activity! I just discovered your link party – thanks for the chance to be a part!
What a cool introduction to weaving. I posted my recipe for Israeli couscous salad.
That is very cool! I’ve never seen anything like that!
Hi just got the time to visit your blogg , Ihave never seen weaving on sticks – very cool.
Hi Linda!
I used the same techniq with almost blind people but we also had a base made of wood with holes
in the same diameter as the sticks that were drilled in one line closed to each other.So the base help to hold the sticks. The holes in the sticks are above about 2 centimeters from the end.
Ariella
Ooh, I love this. I just pinned it so I can definitely give it a try when my daughter is a bit older. Thank you for sharing it at Sharing Saturday! Have a wonderful week!
great hobby. Years ago I got a practical and simple tool for stick weaving, so that many ticks can be used and a woven item is wider.
The sticks are not held in hand but are inserted in holes in a lath.
Thanks so much for the great tutorial!!
How do you think it would work with chop-sticks?
This was so nice! I just found out about Stick Weaving from a post on FaceBook. When I searched Stick Weaving, you were one of only a handful of posts on the internet. There was only a couple of YouTube videos. Thank you for your post and information. I wish I had seen it before I ordered 2 sets of sticks from Amazon. Either way, I will know how to make bigger sticks if I want!
@Anne. You will get a much tighter looking weave w/ chopsticks. I need to try that myself.
@Linda. I made a comb loom using Popsicle sticks and a wood paint stirrer. I’m testing it before I teach a class. If I don’t want to leave tassels at the end, how would I hide the strings? Also, what brand chunky wool do you use? Please e-mail me with suggestions. Thank you.
Hi Linda,
Thank you for your post. I am interested to know how well your 5 year old took to the craft. I am considering introducing my 4 year old Granddaughter, but don’t want to overwhelm her.
Wonderful job on the website, and congratulations on homeschooling your children, it is so much fun for all involved – I am now a homeschooling Grandma!
Sandie
Hi Sandie,
My then 5 year old really loved it and worked on the craft for short periods of time.
Thank you for your lovely message 🙂
Linda
Beautiful, appreciate seeing this. Keep up the good work.