Freeform Pineneedle Weaving

Freeform pine needle wall hanging

This was even more fun. No form to follow. I used the same technique and just ad libed the shape and form as I went.. I placed a metal tree of life icon in the centre

I just added this photo to show how the needles are held together by threading them through a straw as you weave. More pine needles are added at the end of the straw at various intervals so that a continuous thickness is achieved.

A Pine Needle basket

I am not a weaver but i inherited a small needlework basket from my maternal grandmother and was fascinated by how it had been made. My whole reason for working with pine needles was based on this concept.. More advanced proponents of this technique will have lovely straight lines in the binding but i was happy with what i achieved. It is a slow meditative process and at some stage I want to revisit this technique.

The pine needles are threaded through a plastic straw and each layer is bound to the one before with waxed thread. Where the beaded inserts are I just wrapped the thread around the pine needles to create a window and then carried on with the weaving technique. The beads were added in later using thread to attach them inside the windows.

The edge of the lid was made in a similare way: binding the pine needles and catching them in periodically to the layer below.

I think my Nan would be very pleased to know I had carried on this tradition from her inspiration.

Working with Pine Needles

Pine needles are readily available and a renewable resource. However, not all pine needles are created equal. In New Zealand there are lots of pinus radiata trees but these needles are quite short for creating art woven projects. I am fortunate that the park next to my house has a Ponderosa pine and these needles are excellent as they are quite long and strong.

Pine needles gathered off the ground need to be washed and dried to make sure no bugs or spores are attached to them. This is a simple as washing in warm soapy water and patting dry with a towel and leaving to air dry thoroughly.

To control the bundle of pine needles and facilitate adding in of more pine needles, the needles are threaded through a plastic straw and then attached with strong thread. I have used a polyester waxed thread. The ultimate in waxed linen thread but this can be expensive and difficult to source.

In the project above I have used gel medium to attach tissue to a firm substrate and achieve a textured background. Once dry, I have placed some blobs of acrylic paint in random places on the substrate and used an old credit card to blend and spread the paint.

This was an introductory example of using pine needles so the composition of the pine needles is just three simple korus at varying heights. We will look more closely at more comples projects over the next couple of days