Reviewed by
Mary
Craftiosity supplies a bimonthly craft kit which includes everything you need to make something lovely and useful with your own two hands. Past boxes have had a huge variety of projects, including a clock, a mobile, needle felting, and lots more. It’s a great way to try out lots of different techniques, and have something lovely at the end of it!
Presentation is always lovely. It really does feel like an adventure waiting to happen when you open up the box!
This month’s project is to make woven coasters, or anything you want a little mat for.
Inside the box is a loom, needles, plus two beautiful cotton yarn for weaving.
The instructions are always excellent, step-by-step with photographs and you can also access video instructions if you prefer visual learning.
As an extra bonus, there are a couple of pretty postcards that are really nice little extras that can be used for sending, decoration, or even scrapbooking.
You can recycle the box and packing as well.
I vaguely remember weaving something at school, probably using some kind of raffia, but this is is much neater!
The instructions tell you exactly how to wind the supporting threads onto the loom, and then how to set it up ready for weaving. It suggests you use a piece of cardboard but I discovered that one of the inserts about the instruction video was the perfect size as a guide when I folded it in half!
I also knew the general principle of weaving opposite threads over and under. The first few rows are a bit tricky, pushing it down straight onto the cardboard guide, but once I had done a few it felt more stable.
The instructions were also clear about how to change thread colour, which is easier than you might think!
There were several templates to use as a guide for your pattern, simple stripes plus more complicated versions, so I decided to go a little off-piste.
As you can see in the last picture my pattern is growing!
It’s quite zen but not too repetitive, you have to pay attention to the length of yarn you have left, and to be aware of your pattern, so it’s just the right amount of concentration. it’s actually the perfect thing to do while you listed to a podcast.
Once you have done all your weaving it’s time to create the tassels and remove it from the frame.
On the left you can see the the underside, which looks rather like a mad sea creature! But again the instructions tell you exactly how to do all the knotting and trimming, and on the right you can see the finished mat.
The instructions estimated it should take 2-3 hours. I think it might have taken me slightly longer, but that’s a reasonable estimate. This project is also one you don’t have to do all at once, you can pick it up whenever you have a few minutes to make a few more rows. This is very useful if you don’t have a big chunk of time to dedicate to crafting all at once.
The finished project I think looks absolutely lovely, and it would also work very well as a tiny dollhouse rug!
By Evelyn 
