History of Weaving

Warp on a loom

Now that you have a big thread wound onto your spindle, you might want to make some of it into a piece of cloth.

(Of course there are many other uses for thread like tying up your hair or making fishing lines). But suppose you want to make cloth. So you take this thread and you loop it back and forth over a loom to make the warp, and then you weave back and forth through the warp to make the weft, and then you have a finished piece of cloth. Then you can cut it off the loom with a knife or a pair of scissors and tie off the ends so they don't ravel (or leave them long to make a fringe).

weft on a loom

Weaving was probably invented much later than spinning, around 6000 BC, in West Asia. At first people just wove narrow bands with their fingers, and it was only later that they began to use looms.

Here's a video of a woman weaving in China:

For more about weaving, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:

You Can Weave!: Projects for Young Weavers, by Kathleen Monaghan (2001).

World Textiles: A Concise History, by Mary Schoeser (2003). For adults.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years : Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (1995). Not for kids, but an interested high schooler could read it. Fascinating ideas about the way people made cloth in ancient times, and why it was that way.