Grade Level: 8
Project: Weaving
I Can:
- Discuss different types of textile arts, including Kente cloths of South Ghana.
- Use a symbolic palette of colors in my weaving, and explain why I chose these colors.
- Use tabby and dovetail weaving techniques to create a tapestry.
Materials:
- Warp thread, looms, tapestry needles, yarn, scissors
Academic Language:
- Warp: The internal skeleton of a weaving
- Weft: The woven material (goes left to right)
- Knitting vs. weaving: knitting is a series of knots, while a weaving has an internal
skeleton.
- Tabby weaving: regular over-under weaving that spans the entire warp.
- Dovetail Weaving: two or more colors that interlock where they meet in the weaving.
- Kente Cloth: a traditional fabric made in South Ghana in which woven rectangles (which
were traditionally woven by men) were sewn together to create a large cloth (traditionally
sewn by women)
Day 2-5: The teacher will demonstrate the dovetail weaving process, which creates interlocking
vertical stripes of color. The students are expected to have at least two sections of tabby
weaving and two sections of dovetail weaving. This will not fill the loom, but they may choose
which they are more comfortable or like better to finish the design.