How to weave tiny fish on the Martha Stewart loom

I needed to make  a long narrow piece to fill a gap in a woven piece that I am working on.

I thought…. why weave a rectangle, when I could weave a whole string of little fishies!

A few years ago, I figured out how to weave Cluny knots or Clunies, which are little woven circles or ovals, on the potholder loom.

While I was doing that, I thought that I could probably figure out a way of weaving fishies instead of circles.  This thought has been lingering on hold in the back of my mind for years, and so, today, I decided to go for it.

I also decided that the Martha Stewart loom would work even better than the potholder loom, because you can just put in whatever pegs you want, wherever you want them. Brilliant!

So, I wove and un-wove and wove and un-wove and wove wove wove wove and came up with some pretty darned cute little Swishy Fishies!

They are about the size of a penny.  You can weave one little Swishy Fish, or a whole line of them.

The fish can either be used individually (earrings, perhaps?) or can be woven as a continuous strand to make trim for wall hangings, towels, pillows, bags, hats, vests, coats, mitts, totebags, cards, journals, scrapbook pages or whatever your heart desires!

Here’s how to set up your Martha Stewart loom:

Here’s the video:

What do you need to weave Swishy Fish?

1] A Martha Stewart loom

2] Craft needle and a finer darning needle

3] Warp: A ball of smooth yarn that is medium weight

4] Weft: Each Swishy Fish takes at least a yard of yarn

5] Beads for eyes, and needle and thread to sew them on.

Here are some diagrams to hopefully explain things even more….

Here’s the warping path:

On a sad note: 😦 This video is dedicated to a very sweet little fish who lived in my daughter and son-in-law’s fish tank for 5 years, ‘Won Ton’ was a friendly little goldfish who was always interested in what was going on outside the tank! (I wove the little white fish in memory of Won Ton for my daughter.)

Sadly, Won Ton went to swim over the rainbow bridge while I was making this video, which struck me as a sad bit of synchronicity.

Swim on, little Won Ton!!!!

And, may weaving these little fish bring delight to weavers where ever they may be!