I have done a lot of my bead work using a square stitch mainly because the only loom I have is very small, and very basic.
Square stitch is great, and has a nice clean finish, but it takes forever! After doing some online window shopping for a larger loom I decided I could make myself a temporary one out cardboard. From what I saw online, a large wooden loom was in the $70-$90 range. My husband has done a ton of online shopping lately, so we have an abundance of amazon and ebay boxes.
Materials Needed:
- Cardboard
- Hot glue and hot glue gun
- 2 springs
- 2 chopsticks
- 2 push pins
I started off by cutting out the base of the loom and the arms that will hold your spring. I doubled up on both so that they will be sturdy. You will need 2 pieces measuring 22"x5". I wanted a larger loom, but if you want something smaller you can adjust your width of the base. For the arms you will need 8 measuring 4"x3" with a 1" top.
I hot glued the two large pieces together, and glued each small piece to one other small piece. You'll end up with 4 small pieces. Glue two pieces at each end with the angled ends facing outwards.
I put two stabilizing pieces of cardboard in the front of the arms and one in the middle of the angled part of the arms. You'll have to measure the space in between the arms to determine what size to make these stabilizing pieces.
Next you need to cut down your chopsticks to 5". I used en x-acto knife to make a hole in the loom arm to put the chopsticks through.
After you have your chopstick and spring in place put a little glue on both ends of spring to hold it in place. That way your warp threads don't slip around. I also put some glue on the ends of the chopstick on the outside of the arm.
I glued one more stabilizing piece on the angled part of the arms. This piece measures 5"x1" and is glued on the outside. I used a push pin to hold my thread in place. This will go in the middle of the last stabilizing piece.
After your push pins are in place you're all finished. Now this loom isn't gonna last forever, and it is a very rough version of a loom, but it will make do for the time being. This project cost me nothing as I had all of the materials on hand. Hope you enjoyed yet another cardboard project!