Craftsman Crate: The Loom Beading Crate

Description

We have loved traveling through the Southwest, visiting museums and stopping at trading posts (yes, they still call themselves posts!). We’ve seen some incredible works of art in places like that!

People have used seed beads to decorate textiles from earliest recorded history. Originally, craftsmen fashioned beads from stones, semi-precious gems, pearls, shells, porcupine quills, or seeds, drilling holes in them for the thread.

When Europeans brought glass seed beads to the Americas as trade goods, the indigenous artisans quickly adopted them into their already well-developed beadwork art. While beadwork was common throughout history, the indigenous peoples of the Americas invented a technique of weaving beadwork on a loom to allow them to produce more intricate and complex patterns that could be used in a wide variety of ways.

Get this crate for more of the fascinating history of this art!

The Loom Beading Crate Contains:

Beading Loom – The original bent branches led to wooden looms and ended up as the metal looms we will be using.

Wood Spool Bars with Bolts and Wing Nuts – Attach these to the loom with attached hardware.

Thread or Cord – This thread, holds the beads into the weave, serves as both weft and warp. You have an extra spool, too!

Ruler – So you can measure how much thread you will need.

Scissors – Don’t want you to have bite off that cord!

Tape – To temporarily secure the thread.

Needles – You will use these to gather the beads onto the cord.

Seed Beads – These tiny beads were originally used as trade goods, like money, so they are full of history. We’ve given you an assortment of white, black, and colors, plus a larger amount of four of the most common colors.

Palette – A palette will help you to easily pick up the seed beads for weaving.

Subscribe to Craftsman Crate to have one of these amazing crates delivered to your house every month complete with the tools, supplies, and lessons to learn the skills of an artisan! Use Craftsman Crate as a gift, a hobby, or a curriculum – it’s fun, it’s rewarding, and it’s authentic. Click to learn more!