Woven Wall Hanging

Hello all!

I've recently become a stay at home dad, and my wife and I have always enjoyed doing crafts together. We've started making and selling wall hangings, and I thought i'd share a brief run down of the process with you all.

Step 1: Step 1: Material and Set Up

For these projects, we use mainly a frame loom (my wife sometimes uses her large floor loom). We purchased ours from Funem Studio online "https://funemstudio.com/shop". We start by tying on the warp. It must past through the crossbar at the top and bottom, as well as the heddle rod. The idea being, when you rotate the heddle rod, it creates a gap to pass your yarn through, otherwise known as the shed. Depending on how large a project you are making, you may not use the entire width of the loom. I started tying on the warp at the edge as i wanted to use the whole width of the loom.

Step 2: Step 2: Weaving the Fringe

Once we've tied on the warp, its time to pick your colour pallet. I usually put all the yarns together to make sure i like the way they look together before beginning. I begin by taking the Shed Stick (tool to assist in passing yarn between the gap in the warp (shed) and use it to weave a thin yarn back and forth creating a line 3-4 threads thick, known as the weft. This will be the base for your fringe to tie to. For the fringe, its really up to you how long you want to make it. I like quite a long fringe, this one is roughly 2.5 feet long. Cut threads of your choice double the length you want the fringe to be, as each one will become 2 of the threads hanging down. Pass each end of the thread underneath the 3-4 lines of yarn, and back out the top of it leaving a small loop at the front. The 2 ends of the thread with then pass through the loop, and will be pulled tight. I like to get a nice mix of colour and thickness in the fringe. I even left 3 in the center loose to give a bit more texture and to change up the pattern.

Step 3: Step 3: Weaving the Warp

Once I had finished tying on the fringe, it was time to start the weft. The basic technique is to rotate the heddle rod one way or another to create a gap, or Shed, in the threads. This allows you to pass the weft through the warp easily with the help of the shed stick. Now there isn't any rules to this, I basically pick a yarn, and just start weaving. I generally do a few rows and check to make sure it's looking the way I want it to. Just remember to rotate the heddle rod in the opposite direction each time.

I like adding a mix of clean, thin lines as well as a few bulkier ones using different textured yarn. You can even leave long pieces of the weft hanging out to create the loops as seen in the pictures. I find it gives it even more texture and character. In the forth photo, there's a large gap with no weft, I left the gab as later on I went back and filled it in with a different thicker yarn seen in the 5th photo.

I just kept on adding different yarns until I felt like the project was complete.

Step 4: Step 4: Back of the Weaving

Once you've finished weaving, you will likely have a bunch of ends of yarn sticking out the back of your project. Its important that you tie them together to avoid your project from working its way apart.

You can just tie 2 ends together, or, if there is just 1 end I use a needle to sew it through another thread.

Once everything is tied, you can go through it with a pair of scissors and trim the long bits.

Step 5: Step 5: Finishing

Once the back is cleaned up, its time to cut the project off of the loom. You should have 2-3 inchs of the warp left at the top and bottom of your project. I start at the bottom where the fringe is. I cut the first 2 threads and tie them together, creating a knot right at the fringe. You wont see the knot when the fringe is hanging down. I find doing 2 threads at once keeps the tension on the project and is easier to work with. Once you've tied off all the threads at the bottom, you can cut off all the excess warp.

When doing the top of the project you do the exact same thing as the bottom, however, I don't cut off the extra warp. I leave it long, and tie 8 or so of them together creating a loop. This then gives me something to pass a stick through to hang the project from.

And there we go, one wall hanging. I hope this has been slightly helpful. I'm realizing now that I should have taken a heck of a lot more photos, and had a more detailed step by step. The next one will for sure.

Thank you

David