Studio: Fibers – Advanced Weaving with Layers with Allison Krook

Video Transcript

Now that we’ve covered basic paper weaving, I want to show you a couple of techniques in advanced paper weaving. For example, I’m going to show you how to create a weaving that looks like this, with a lot of different layers, and a lot of different textures. To begin this weaving, you’ll start out with your basic paper loom by folding your paper in half. You’ll need a ruler and a pencil. Again, this is a step that students can easily do on their own. Use the ruler to draw lines across your loom simply using the width of the ruler as your guide. When you finish drawing your warp lines, cut them out. You’re ready to begin weaving.

For a lesson like this, I always give students a lot of different choices of weaving strips of paper. I pre-cut them on my paper cutter so that everybody gets the same size. Sometimes I’ll even cut some thicker strips of paper for students to use either on the ends of their weaving or throughout their weaving. For this particular lesson, I like to have students create a pattern that is more complex than just AB, AB. For example, in this weaving, I’m going to use three different colors. I’m going to do an ABC pattern. If you want to challenge your students, you could have students create a pattern that is ABBC or more complex than that.

Continue to weave until you get to the end. When you’re finished weaving, you’ll end up with something that looks like this. I said this weaving was going to be an advanced layered weaving so here comes the part where we start adding different layers. I like to have students use wacky scissors with lots of different textures to add that textured look into the weaving. Students can use regular one-inch strips of papers and use the wacky scissors to create some unique strips to weave through their paper.

You might just cut the paper in half using the wacky scissors, or like I’m showing you right now, you might create a strip of paper that has texture on both sides. Now that I’ve got all my textured strips cut out, I’m going to weave them through the top layer of the weaving. I’m going to choose one color in my pattern to slide these strips through. They actually slide through fairly easily to add that little extra pop. Some students, who finish this step early, might create textured layers for every color in their pattern. You’ll have to decide is that’s something you’d like your students to do. Students might use different types of wacky scissors to create different patterns, or you can have students all just use the same.

If you’d like to add an additional layer to your weaving, you could use long strips that fit the length of your paper, You use the wacky scissors or just the regular scissors to cut these strips into skinnier pieces. You can weave these strips in going vertically. These are a little bit trickier to slide under, but if you just kind of squeeze the paper around the woven strips, you should be able to get it to slide through. I think I’ll skip a spot here. When you’ve completed your weaving make sure you glue all of the edges down. Finally, you can use thicker strips to create a fringe on the end to give your weaving a look like a tradition weaving with yarn and warp thread. Here’s the finished product.

The next weaving that I’m going to show you is going to take this basic idea with the advanced paper weaving and bring it up one level for you to create another interesting work of art. The next weaving technique that I’m going to show you is how to take the advanced paper weaving that we just completed and do something a little bit different with it. For example, you might turn that advanced layered paper weaving into an animal weaving.

If you want to do a particular animal, you might choose different colors for students to use that match the animal that they’d like to create. However, in this example, I just used random colors. First, complete your layered weaving. Then, take a black sheet of paper or any other color you choose, and fold it in half lengthwise. Using your pencil, draw the shape of whatever animal you’d like to create. I think I’m going to make a cat. Since the drawing is going to end up being on the backside of the paper, you can have students draw shapes for the animal faces. That might help them a little bit with trying to get the right shape and size for their animal.

Cut out the shape. Set this piece aside because you really don’t need that. Open up the silhouette of your animal. You’re going to lay that on top of your layered weaving and that’s going to create the basic outline of the shape of your animal. Take some glue. For this particular part of the lesson, I like to use Elmer’s Glue because it sticks a little bit more. We need all these edges to lay down on the weaving. Otherwise, I generally just use a glue stick. Carefully have students flip the silhouette over. This part can be a little bit tricky, just have them not press down until they get it situated. Once the silhouette is situated, make sure that it is glued securely onto the weaving.

Now that you’ve glued the animal silhouette onto your weaving, you’re ready to add some details. If you take a look at this particular weaving that I made, you can see that I created a silly face using lots of expression. This is a time for students to really be creative with this lesson and bring this weaving to the next level. The next lesson I’m going to show you is also an animal weaving, but we’re going to be doing something just a little bit different.