Weaving with Reusable Materials
Weaving with kids is so much fun! You can weave with all sorts of reusable materials.
Weaving with Reusable Materials : Party in the Art Room
Where the Idea Originated
After replacing the shelving in the pantry, I just couldn't stand to throw out the old wire shelves. It felt wasteful.
The only reason we replaced them in the first place was because some of them were broken in places when we bought the house.
Anyway, after driving around with these partially broken, wire shelves in the back seat of my car for a couple of weeks, I had an epiphany! Why not use them as looms for a weaving project?
A loom is a frame for interlacing at right angles. These were perfect!
Here's What We Did
I asked my Facebook friends for donations of fabric scraps that could be cut into strips about 2 feet long and 1 inch wide. My Facebook friends always come through for my art students! I received lots of great fabric scraps. Some even donated old (clean) clothing.
I added these scraps to the ribbon scraps and yarn that I already had in the art room. I let students work in groups to devise color themes and combine the fabric, ribbon, yarn, and even some paper to create their own design.
They used glue to combine ribbon and fabric. They took turns in their group weaving the strips into the wire shelving. They took turns holding the shelving while their peers weaved as well. They also used glue to attach smaller details after they were finished weaving.
In the photographs, you can see the different parts that make up the whole of this project. Below, the blue and dark pink areas are strips of the donated fabric. The smaller pink squares are scraps of poster paper. The black parts underneath this are cut up scraps of ribbon. The green is yarn leftover from another project.
Here Are Some Other Reusable Items for Looms:
Oven racks
Grill racks