Improvisational Weavings — Rachel Lu

For my first weave, I used the handle of an old take out box as the loom, and following the food theme, I used baker’s twine for the warp, and linguini pasta as the weft. Due to the thickness of the pasta, this was the tightest I could get the pasta next to each other. The more pasta I added, the more taut it got. At some point, one in the middle broke, so I had to pull it out, but it was too tight to put back in, so I had to take the rest out and redo it. In retrospect, I think it would be more interesting if I also used like spaghetti as well and alternated them. (I had to throw this out though because it turns out there was still rice in the box..)

For my second weave, I used a small picture frame as the loom, baker’s twine as the warp, and paint brushes as the weft. Due to the thickness of the paint brushes and the tightness of the warp, this weave ended up very spaced out as well. I was also trying to get the warping technique down. I wrapped it five times in the top, and then spaced it out to 7 towards the bottom.

For my third weave, I wanted to try a circular weave. I used a cup as the loom, embroidery floss for the warp, and a cloth head wrap as the weft. It was hard at first because the string kept moving around, and it made it hard to see which one was next, but after the first round, it got easier! I really like how this one is not spaced out like the last two because I used a soft weft, and the last two were hard ones. The cloth also puffed up slightly to cover the embroidery floss in most cases. It seems almost flowery, like a hydrangea?