hoop loom weaving

We need a new mat for the playhouse. I saw this idea here http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/hula-hoop-rug and had to try it because we happen to have heeeeaps of hoola hoops. My husband works for a drilling company. They drill tunnels and pull bundles of plastic tubing back through that hold fibre optic cables like those used for the Telstra network. 

Anyway, he bought some of the tubing home one day thinking that the colours would appeal to the kids and when he was playing around with it he worked out a simple way to make hoops. We have a big one we use to keep T's marbles from going everywhere as you can see here: loosing-your-marbles and we've made up some smaller ones for a quoits game that I'll finish one day ; ).

My husband also happened to have a surplus of old tee shirts which is the other thing you need for this project. If you're going to use a standard sized toy hoola hoop you may need to use kids sized tee shirts. I used adult sized ones because I was able to make the hoop to the size I needed.

I started ours off for the children and sat with them as they wove adding new strips when they needed them. They enjoyed it and I love that it will take away some of the 'slippery-ness' of our playhouse floor and that it's machine washable. It's not very big as they weren't very intereseted in weaving for long periods of time. The next time we make one I'll use some nice bright tee shirts from an op shop. I'd also cut the strips of tee shirt a bit thinner. I think they'd make quite fun little mats for the beach this Summer.