Strap Adventures
The adventure begins...
I haven't used this small bead loom in a long time, mostly because the weaving area is only 4-1/4". But, I love working with it; it fits in my hand perfectly. I had forgotten about the lovely momentum of weaving and the satisfaction of seeing the work build. You weavers will know what I mean. So, I used a light blue, cotton, size 10 crochet thread as the warp. I then tried out different wefts. First the craft thread was too small and boring. Next the ribbon yarn was interesting but snagged alot. Then back to the same light yarn I was crocheting with. This worked really well. I loved it...but then I got to the end of the tiny little loom. I tried to do a mickey mouse thing where I taped it to the back to continue weaving but the weave was getting all messed up...aaahhhh. 
So, I tried a cardboard loom where slits are cut into corrugated cardboard, the warps are strung, and then wefts are woven into the warps. It was working fairly well, just still not long enough for a strap and a little messier than I would have liked. 
Here's the two resulting products the top being from the cardboard loom and the bottom being from my little wood loom. I will use those for something. My daughter has already claimed the smaller one for her American Girl doll...we'll see. 
Okay...next. I tried macramé in blue, size 4 yarn. I have ancient memories from my Mother doing a lot of macramé in the 70's with big thick chords. Then it came back into my life in the 80's with friendship bracelets using thin embroidery floss. A regular sized yarn and a clipboard makes it much easier, but it was taking too long. 
Here's a close-up. 
Oh wait...somewhere in all of this I painted braided nylon belt with fabric markers. You can see it in one of the previous pictures. This would have been fine, except I couldn't find the little plastic piece to adjust it (what is that called, I'll have to look that up) and the colors were a little too bright. 
So yes, in the end I used store bought fabric hem tape. If any non-crafters would read this I know they would be thinking, "What? Is she nuts?" Maybe some crafters are thinking that as well. But, I don't think it's nuts to try out different things until you find the exact right element for whatever project you're working on. This also let me brush up on skills I had forgotten...Plus, what else am I supposed to write about on this website?
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