Woodland Weaving

On the path to our creek is this giant grape vine that comes down from the trees, loops around then climbs back up into the trees. It has been here like this for several years unchanged. We have pretended in the past that it was a door to the fairy world, or portal to an alternate dimension. We've had a lot of fun with it. It is strong enough to climb on.

The last time we hiked down to the creek i was looking at our circular vines...and thought it would be fun to turn it into a spider web or a giant dream catcher or weaving wheel. :)



So this week, when the kids were in school i snuck down with a ball of yarn and created a dreamcatcher/spiderweb. i can usually make dream catchers easily, but this was actually quite difficult. The circle is around 5' tall (same height as me) and it's on an embankment. So there is no good place to stand. i had to throw the ball of twine over the top of the loop several times to create the pattern. it was quite fun. :)



It was really tough to get a picture of it. The twine is thin, so it just doesn't show up well in the photos.


When my kids came home from school i suggested a hike in the woods. :) When we came up to the grapevine loop they immediately saw the spiderweb. :)

"Oh no! Watch out for the Acromantula!!!"

Lots of fun. :) i also like that it is temporary. The twine will eventually weather away, and we'll be left to create something new in this space.


After completely our dream catcher web, i still had the lingering idea to create a circular weaving wheel. Something similar to the hula hoop weaving, but that was created with natural materials. So i pulled down some grape vine from the edge of the woods (we have tons!) and wrapped it into a circular shape. i left the green on it, although they will eventually die back.

Then i created the warp with twine, similar to the way it was done with the hula hoop.

Then i hung it from my kids' play fort, creating a weaving wall. :)



We had fun experimenting with plants. There are daylily leaves, catmint, chickory and knapweed weaved into this. This too is all temporary. The plants will die back and have to be removed, we'll weave new plants in..so it will always be changing.