Sunday Afternoon Art – Process Weaving

Sunday Afternoon Art takes place at Orleans House Gallery and is a chance for families to get creative. While the gallery is closed, we will be sharing activities every Sunday for you to do at home. Get crafty this Easter weekend!

This activity is suitable for ages 6+ (with help from an adult)

You will need:

• Paper plate (or card cut into a circle)
• Colourful string, wool or ribbon
• Scissors
• Pens/paints/crayons to decorate the plate (optional)

Show us your creations using #orleanshousegallery

Cut 11 slits along the edge of your paper plate – try to space evenly but a little variation is fine! Piece a hole though the centre.

Slip a loooong piece of string (about 2m) into one slot, bring down over the front of the plate and tuck into the slot that is opposite, bring around the back edge and tuck into the next slot through to the front again. Repeat until this until all the slots are filled. Don’t worry, it’s much simpler than it sounds!

Tie the thread ends together at the back of your plate. We will call this our web. Time to start weaving!

Take a piece of coloured sting and tie it to a strand of the web, as close to the centre as possible. Feed the coloured string over and under as you go around your web.

When you want to change colour, just tie a new string to the end of your old one and continue. What colours do you think will go well together?

Once you have made it as big as you like, tie the end of the sting to a strand of the web. Cut the string at the back of the plate and unhook the web from the slits. Tie up the loose ends and marvel at your creation!

You can reuse the plate to weave as many pieces as you like! Or if you would like to display your creation on the plate, you can decorate it with paints or pens before you start weaving.

Show us your creations using #orleanshousegallery