Woven Kiddo Kicker :: Weaving Workshop :: Tutorial

I’ve been working this afternoon on a project I’m doing with some kiddos as part of the Spring Break Art Camp. I’ll be working with kids 5 and up so it has to be easy, solid, and the flexibility to be more complex.

At first the idea was to have them weave their own rugs – to which I thought mug rugs because it takes so long to weave, but then it was “nope, like rugs they can sit on would be preferred”. Hmm. How to make this work. Rugs for kids that they can weave that are easy and neat and fun to make + nice to sit on (they will be watching some movies, having story time, doing other workshops, so it would be great if they could use them all week). Hmmmmmmmmm. At first I thought carpet samples would be the ticket. We could just cut them up, weave them together, and twine around the edges to keep it secure. Well, it would work but it would be Too Quick and it wouldn’t be that nice to sit on.

Then I thought about fleece. Now that’s the ticket. I tried it out today and it works great. Now just one issue: how to finish it!? I mean, we can’t just have them flopping around. This first one I sewed the edges with a zig zag stitch. It works, but I would have to do it and I really want them to be able to do the whole thing.

I was thinking maybe we could just fold the ends over and secure them some how – hot glue? not kid friendly but could work. We could do ties like on a tie quilt with yarn? another thing I was thinking was to use cardboard strips around the edges and secure it to that somehow – glue? tape? staples?

Or I could cut the ends of the strips in half and tie them like you would for anything else that was a plain weave. So that’s what I did.

This is actually a really fun and easy project. It’s perfect for a little sitting rug or throw for a 5-8 year old. Too small for me though so I think I’m going to give it to Molly. She’s been sitting on my desk lately so she can meow at the crows and I think that it would be great for her to sit on – especially if I fold it in half or in fourths. Or it might just be the perfect thing for the ferrets – Beuler just came over and burrowed in to it. Either way it was a fun instant gratification project – just took an hour to make and less than 1 yard of fleece. And if you use fleece on a regular basis and have strips left over, this is perfect!

Anyway, on to how to make this little guy:

Woven Kiddo Kicker Rug
1 inch strips of fleece or felt (fleece is softer) – they need to be 24 or 36 inches in length
Cardboard 20″ X 30″
Stapler (or T pins or thumb tacks)
Scissors

Take 20 of the 1″ X 36″ strips and staple them (or use thumb tacks) to secure the bottom and the top of the strips to the cardboard – like so:

And then use the 24″ Strips to work a plain weave. Like so:

Once you finish up, cut the ends of the strips in half as pictured above.

And tie them off so you are tying ends from two separate strips together.

On the corners, it’s the same thing. Make sure you tie ends from two different strips together.

Tie the sides first, then release the bottom, tie it off, then the top and tie it off.

Molly has completely laid claim to this little kiddo kicker :)

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In other news I’ve been working on fixing up my blog. I redid the banner and am working on the style sheet to get everything fancied up. It’s going to take some time, but my css skills are slowly improving :)

Oh and I put up my new class list for this upcoming quarter (March-May) if you live in the central Iowa area I would love to see any of you there! I don’t have all the details yet, but I should by the end of this week and I will add them in once I get them.

Well, that’s it for now! I’ll see you all tomorrow!
Happy Crafting!
Kristin