Wall weaving! There's no way you missed out on this fashion! You can see them blooming on trending Instagram accounts, in magazines, Facebook groups dedicated to creative hobbies and I'm not even talking about Pinterest. Everyone hangs this kind of pennant on the wall, made from wool or other materials more or less inspired. The wall weaving of nowadays does not take up at all the codes of works of the ladies of old times. It does not tell of historical or religious frescoes. And it is super fast to make.
In short, here we are in contemporary, in graphics, in "you-can-do-what-you-want,” “it will be beautiful at the end.” I'm not gonna lie to you, I don't intend to cover my house with wall weaving, it's not my thing. I don't hate it, but in the deco stuff I want for my house, it's not super high on the list. On the other hand, I love making them. Because it's creative, it's totally free, because it's fun and fast, because it's a relaxing and entertaining activity. So with my girlfriend Claire, we made a deal. She gives me the kit received as a gift to make her weaving, I appreciate my design once it is finished. I love it when it all comes together like this.
I show you how the kit looks like and I follow the tutorial to make a wall weaving.
So in it, there is a wooden frame, which is therefore the loom, wool and other cottony materials, a comb to compress and two wooden elements to facilitate weaving.
Setting up the loom
We start with the assembly of the loom. They provide you with a thread that will be the weave of the wall weaving. You tie a knot in a corner and go through every section, one by one. You go up, you go down, you go up, you go down.
In the end, you get this frame, tense but not too much. (There are other ways of setting up the basic framework, but this is simple enough to start with.
Tutorial for making a weave
Let's go for weaving. I made it clear in the preamble that this tutorial is not a model to follow, you do as you please, with the techniques, materials and colours that suit you. I'm just telling here how I made my wall weaving.
I started with a thread of white wool that I passed over and under the threads of the weave. When I reached the end, I started again but in alternating direction. I pass underneath the thread where I passed over the first line and so on.
The comb allows the rows of wool to be folded down so that they are well plated.
The current trend is not to make complete lines. You can stop halfway to create more graphic areas. And we complete them with others to vary the colors, patterns and reliefs.
For a pompom effect, I simply made knots around the threads of the weave. Lots of knots... Then I trim with scissors to get the desired height. I like pompoms right now I believe (like those of my Christmas wreath).
It gives you something like that. It must be continued to fill all the gaps between the different areas.
My activity greatly interests my children, but it was this one that "helped me"... With the stick, it spread the threads so that the wool was easier to pass through. Since then, she has embarked on the understanding of her wall weaving.
I'll show you the progress and add a piece of advice. As I chose not to finish the rows and vary the volumes of the materials used (more or less thick), sometimes I created "holes" without my own free will. So I connected the woollen strands, passing them sometimes over where they should be, or underneath, in order to fill the unsightly spaces.
Manage finishes
And this is the result, always connected to the loom. As you can see, the strands of the woven areas are clearly visible. We have to find ways to solve this visual problem. First we flip the frame.
As a result, the back of the weaving is a little messy. There are threads coming from everywhere! To stop them, I chose to tie knots between them, without pulling too much.
You take the two closest strands and you tighten them! Same with the threads coming out on the sides, as soon as possible, you have to fold them down by knotting them or by ironing them in the yarns of the weave (but on the back side and make sure that it doesn't show on the other side).
And in the end, the whole thing has a more “Instagramable” head (I wonder if this word will ever get into the dictionary one day). There remains the stall operation, unless you want to leave it in the loom.
We then proceed one after the other. We cut the threads from the weave and tie them together. If they had been longer, I could have left them free in the air (it would have been like a small fringe) but then I trimmed everything with scissors close to the knot (I also wonder if this article which speaks a lot of knots will not bring me a lot of traffic from people who are looking for something else).
And hop. That's my wall weave! As shown on the photos, we don't necessarily realize it's small! It's got to be 15 by 25cm.
To be able to hang it on the wall, since it's a MURAL weaving, I made a hanging hook with a piece of driftwood.
If I had imagined earlier, I would have slipped the piece of wood into the upper loops of the weave instead of binding them.
But I'm happy with the result. We're in tune with times, my friend has her weaving, I had a great time. My 7-year-old baby has improved. I can't wait to make another one to give it away!