Adams Corner
Decades
Fingerweaving
Finger Weaving: Thirty-minute Bookmark
Finger weaving has deep roots in Native practice where handcrafts were necessary and provided beauty. Fibers for making cordage were obtained from dogbane (Indian hemp), milkweed stem bark, basswood bark, mulberry bark, and other plants. A stone disk with three holes appears in the archaeological record and is thought to have been used to create three-ply cordage and ropes (cords are stronger when wrapped around each other). Woodland cultures twined bags, wove burden straps, and made nets for fishing and catching water fowl. Turkey feather capes were made using cordage to secure the feathers together. Mound cultures created lacy open work and woven garments (cotton was a Native crop in Mexico and nearby areas). In the Northwest Coast, dog and mountain goat fleece was used for weaving. We know about past fiber work through charred remnants of weavings, through materials found in caves where cool, constant temperatures refrigerate and preserve old materials, and through impressions on ancient pottery where fabric was pressed into damp clay pots.
Finger weaving is neither braiding, nor twining, nor netting, and does not employ a heddle or other tool. It is a form of weaving since yarns employ the roles of warps and wefts, but they don’t strictly maintain those roles. Today, finger weaving is made primarily from wool or acrylic yarns (and can be done with embroidery thread). Weaving without a loom can create sashes, straps, turban lengths, and binding strips. Most finger woven items are long and fairly narrow (can be perhaps 14 inches wide). When garments lacked pockets, a woven sash wrapped around the waist would hold tools and food during travel. Wrapped about the head (as a turban), it provided protection and beauty. A shoulder bag with integrated straps could be woven to carry a pipe or fire starter kit. A fragile item could be wrapped in a finger weaving. The craft is primarily found in the Southeastern Woodlands, Great Lakes area, and in Oklahoma.
To make a small finger woven bookmark, cut 6 yarns of one color into 12-inch lengths and 6 yarns of another color into 12-inch lengths. Bunch yarns together and unite in one knot, or wrap each yarn around a pencil or rod, or use a clamp to secure the ends. The first few rows are the hardest because there is not yet an established order to follow. You need to create a SHED, so bring one color forward (UP) and leave the other color DOWN. The space between is called a SHED. Reach from the right side into the SHED, grasp the left-most yarn (which is in an UP position), and pull it through the SHED to the right. PARK it (some use a clothespin, but you can just lay it aside). Now you make another SHED by reversing the UP and DOWN of the yarns so that they lock in the recently passed-through yarn (find the left-most down yarn and lift it up, the next yarn will be up, so you push it to a down position, etc.). You will again reach through and bring the upper outermost yarn through the SHED, and PARK it, and let the formerly parked yarn assume its place as a DOWN yarn. Repeat these steps for several more rows. Your weaving should produce stripes of the colors, but the pattern won’t be evident until about four passes.
When the yarns are hanging vertically, they are WARPS. When a yarn travels from one side to the other, it serves as a WEFT. Finger weaving is the only weaving where the yarns take turns being WARPS and WEFTS. On a loom, warp yarns are secured and wefts move across them, and the two never change their role. Finger weaving creates a REP face (lines of bulges, as often seen in a man’s tie) rather than a FLAT face as in braiding, mat weaving, and the simplest of loom weaving. Also, patterns created by finger weaving are diagonal because the colors leave one side, appear on the other, so the colors groups diminish off the edge of the weaving causing angles of colors, so you cannot make a circle or a square, but you can create chevrons, diamonds, lightning, and arrowheads (and a recent innovation creates a stylized bird with raised wings). The diagonal slashes of color are caused by the yarns moving from one side to another, so that color blocks steadily lose yarns in one area and gain yarns in another causing the pattern shapes to diminish and grow at angles.
When you’ve woven enough to serve as a bookmark, tie pairs of opposite yarns together to lock in the last WEFT, creating a rough fringe. Do the same with the top of your book mark. Snip the yarn fringes to a uniform length (or snip off those that are too long). If you decide to make something bigger as your next project, you might want to consult the following how-to books.
Finger Weaving Indian Braiding, Alta R. Turner, 1973.
A Manual of Fingerweaving, Robert J. Austin, 2000.
Fingerweaving Basics, Gerald L. Findley, 2005.
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