Weaving with Jeans

We received this beautiful loom from Zina of Let’s Lasso the Moon and wanted to try weaving with a different material- jeans!  Our youngest made this piece he called “The Wave” for his beloved teacher for the end of the school last week, as the handmade portion of her gift.   

This is a perfect way to use up a pair of jeans that is damaged that you can’t donate for someone else to use. 

Materials

• Old jeans
• Scissors
• Weaving loom (This one is from Melissa & Doug is good quality)
• Roving wool
• Yarn
• 2 dowel or sticks
• Beads or end caps
• Glue gun*

Directions

• Set up your loom according to the directions.  You could also use a smaller loom if you like.  This particular size was great for a wall hanging.

• Cut your jeans into strips.  We went with ones that were approximately 2.5 cm/ 1 inch thick as our loom is quite big.  First we cut the legs off and then cut them along the seams to open them up.

• String your yarn through the loom as indicated in the directions of the loom to create your vertical lines.  Ours had the string included.

•  Weave your materials through your vertical lines.  We alternated between the jean strips, roving wool and yarn.  When weaving, the kids often say, “Under, over, under, over” or “back, forth, back, forth” as they weave to create a rhythm and keep them on track.  We often doubled the yarn and secured the ends with a knot.  Try to cut your materials so that they are a bit longer that the width of your loom.  *For the jean to attach the ends and finish them off, I glued the end on itself with a glue gun for ease with a younger child, but you could tie it as well.

• You could thread some beads onto your yarn if you like too.

• Before finishing off the ends, we slid in a piece of dowel (a stick would look lovely too) for hanging, unscrewing the pieces of the frame.  For the bottom, we slid in the dowel,  cut the loops and tied a knot for each to attach it to the dowel, adding some more yarn for a fringe in the same fashion.

• Attach two end caps for dowel rods (or have an adult widen the hole on a bead with a drill) to hold your weaving in place.

• Give your piece to a special friend!

Pin this idea for later:

Make some other ideas with yarn:

http://make-it-your-own.com/invitation-to-create-driftwood-yarn/

http://make-it-your-own.com/woven-friendship-bracelet/

http://make-it-your-own.com/sewn-burlap-bookmark/

Purpose

• Developing one’s fine motor skills.
• Re-purposing materials for another use.

Safety Notes

• Use scissors and a glue gun with care and direct, adult supervision.
• Cord, yarn etc. can be a strangulation hazard, therefore be sure to use with direct supervision and for its intended purpose.
• Beads can be a choking hazard, therefore be sure to keep them out of the reach of children ages 0-3 years of age or those that tend to put things into their mouths.