Today I’m going to talk about how to start weaving if you’ve never done it before.
I’ve been seeing a lot of beautiful woven wall hanging tapestries and other woven designs all over Pinterest lately. I was inspired to learn how to weave myself.
There are so many amazing designs and tons of ways you can use your weaves after you’ve completed a project. So the craft has multiple possibilities!
The problem with starting a new craft, however, is that you’re not always going to fall in love with everything you try.
Unfortunately, if you’re curious to give weaving a try, looms can be quite an expensive investment. Especially for a hobby, you’re not sure about yet.
Being the frugal person I am I decided to make my own lap weaving loom and I shared it with you guys recently here on the blog.
It took me a while to complete my first project. Not because it’s incredibly time-consuming.
Actually, you’d be surprised how fast completing a whole tapestry can go depending on the size.
It took me so long because I am absolutely terrible with follow-through.
I have this really bad habit with starting projects and then stopping mid-way through and starting another one.
Anyway, after I finished the loom I needed to figure out how to actually start my first weaving project.
Surprisingly weaving is not terribly complicated. It’s a craft pretty much anyone can pick up.
As you get more comfortable with the basics there are more complicated techniques you can start practicing, that are really fun and make your projects look more intricate and professional.
Before we get ahead of ourselves though, you need to know the basics. Knowing where to start when it comes to a new hobby can be overwhelming. Often times for me it’s what keeps me from starting a project at all.
Don’t worry though.
There are just a few terms and processes you need to know when first starting out.
I’m hoping this post can be a helpful reference for you so you can start your first project with confidence!
What You Need To Know When Starting Your First Weaving Project
Materials
Like I mentioned above, weaving looms can be quite expensive. Luckily they are pretty easy to make on your own, I have a step-by-step tutorial on making your own notched lap weaving loom that you can check out HERE if you want to make one.
However, I won’t lie it requires a little elbow grease. If that’s not your thing and you’d rather just buy one here are a few options:
Other than the loom, weaving is a fairly inexpensive craft when starting out.
There are not many tools it requires.
Even the rows that make up your weaves don’t always use yarn like you’d expect. There are tons of other items you can use in your tapestry-like fabric scraps you have lying around your house.
The one thing that is necessary however is the type of yarn you use for your warp.
What Is A Warp?
A warp is the rows of yarn that you wrap your notched loom around. It’s also how you weave your rows to make your tapestry. You can think of a warp as the skeleton of your entire project.
The warp thread uses a very specific type of thread, it’s a thinner rough kind of cotton. There are several brands out there but a common one and the brand I use is Lily Sugar ‘N Creme in Off White or black.
It runs about ten to fifteen dollars on average but you get a ton so it will last a long time.
Setting Up Your Loom
This is called wrapping your warp and there are a couple different options for doing this. One way is a low-density warp and the other is a high-density warp.
The low-density version has the threads further apart from each other. With a single thread looped around each notch.
The high-density version has threads close together, by having two threads on one notch.
You’ll determine which option to go with depending on the project you’re planning to do.
The high-density option results in tighter more compact weaves.
I used the normal low-density version for my first project and that’s usually the one I’ve seen a lot of people use most often.
How To Reweave Your Loom
At some point in your project, you’re going to run out of yarn. At this point you’ll need to rethread on your tapestry needle (or re-wrap your shuttle depending on what you use).
A shuttle is what I use, it’s the tool you use to wrap your weaving yarn around. Although mine doesn’t have the notches because I used an old painters stir stick.
Normally the ends are caved in a bit to better secure the gathered weaving yarn.
Ideally, you’ll want to end your row with the last of your weaving thread and start a completely new row with your new yarn.
Regardless of where you have to end and start your new yarn, just be sure to leave enough tail on the end of the old yarn so you can secure it in one of two ways.
You can either tie the old tail to the new one or you can tuck the tails underneath existing woven rows so it hides neatly.
Additional Tips
Another tool you can use to make your weaving projects go faster is a Heddle Bar.
I’m not going to go into too much detail about this tool because it’s not really a tool beginners will need.
However, when using a Heddle Bar in your projects they make the process much quicker.
Heddle Bars allow you to slide your shuttle through your wefts without having to manually go over and under every single time.
I have an even simple homemade version that you can see in some of the photos where I wove other painters stick through every other weft.
This isn’t a complete fix but as you might be able to see from the photos when weaving in one of the directions I can lift the painters stick up.
This creates enough of a gap in the wefts that I’m able to slide the shuttle through, saving me a lot of time, and then I can put it down again to go back in the other direction.
I’ll be covering how to make a proper heddle bar in a later post.
The Most Difficult Thing About First Starting Out
Honestly, I found the hardest part about starting weaving was managing the tension.
It’s incredibly easy to want to tighten or straighten your rows as you’re going.
Trust me, if you do that you’ll end up with a really bowed tapestry, where you’ll start to see the yarn pulling inwards towards the middle.
I’m still struggling to be better at this myself, as you can probably see in this project.
However, I can tell you the trick to help keep this from happening from the start.
Instead of pulling on the end to straighten and tighten it, you’re going to take your fingers and push the row down in multiple spots to create smaller and more arches.
This is important, in between making the smaller arches you should strum the strings above your row.
You’ll do this until the row is straight.
This allows the row of the weft to more equally distribute the tension and naturally straighten the weave.
You can find more of my fun and easy DIY projects HERE.
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