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There’s a kind of sneaky reason I’m doing all these traditional kid crafts right now. Don’t get me wrong, I love them — and I think I’m going to devote a post soon to why I love them so much for grown ups — but it’s a little self-serving, too.
I’m developing a curriculum for teaching fiber arts to kids (which sounds a lot fancier than “I’m teaching some summer camps about yarn at the girl’s school this summer”) so I’m trying out some projects. It’s so much fun and I can’t wait to do them with the kiddos.
Another super easy way to get into weaving whatever your age is doing paper plate weaving. The odds are really good you have everything you need in the house for this one, and if you have kids you can do it together quite easily.
I used a heavy-duty plate because that’s all I could find, but you can use a thinner plate and any size will work, too.
Get Started Paper Plate Weaving
Cut little notches in the edge of the plate at relatively even intervals. I ended up with 16.
Take your warp yarn and, with a couple of inches sticking out the back side, slip it into a notch, thread across the front of the plate to the notch on the other side. Bring the yarn across the back to the next closest notch, slide the yarn in to the front, bring across the front to the notch on the other side, crossing the previous piece, and so on until all your notches are filled. Cut the yarn, leaving a few inches at the back again.
To start, I just tied to the first yarn to one of the warp threads. You could also tape it to the plate toward the center. I used yarn about the length of my armspan, but you could use larger or smaller pieces depending on the look you’re going for. Any weight of yarn will work.
As usual, it’s the alternating over under thing (though because I had an even number of warp threads I ended up going over or under two that were next to each other at the beginning of each round) around and around.
When you get close to running out of yarn you can leave a couple of inches to weave in later (as you would in knitting or crochet) or you can tie the old yarn and the new yarn together and just keep going.
I love having this little project handy when I need something to do for a couple of minutes while my computer is restarting or when I just need a break from words.
Have you ever done paper plate weaving? This is one I don’t remember doing as a kid, but I’m sure that my kid would love it, too.
If you try it out I’d love to see your project; just add the hashtag #ourdailycraft.