Our first string art project: a throwback to our beginning - from #LRCrafts - DIY Passion: if you can think it, you can make it by Rici86.
I like browsing our projects gallery. Yes, that’s one of the reasons why I started this website in the first place! When I need to show someone one of our crafts, I can head to the website and swipe the photos. It happens that we usually show the most recent ones to friends, but from time to time we also recall older projects.
Scrolling back to our beginning, you could for example step back in time to how and when our passion for string art was born. It was the year 2016, Locutus and I have been living together in our tiny flat for a few months, when we got inspired by a few string art crafts we saw around. I don’t even remember what they were about or where we met them, but we decided to give it a try ourselves.
We both had crafting backgrounds, Locutus was a skilled sculptor with wood and alabaster, I had crafted with thread before with my mom and granny, so why not? Instead of watching movies, we could craft together during our nights free from Irish dance.
Could we begin the easy way, with a small simple project? A clearly outlined shape to fill with thread? No way! We wanted to start with a proper project to hang in our flat, to feel it more like our home.
String art
Click to see this project’s detailed photos
So we chose a Celtic-themed image: a Celtic tree of life. All the branches intertwined together, a knotted design that’s so common in Celtic art. Our passion for everything Irish and the like is well known, I think.
Well, it was no easy task… All those branches going over and under, over and under… But we didn’t think about that difficulty when we set to start, no.
First, as usual from our very beginning, careful planning. We chose the design, printed it in two copies in the right size to fit a wood board we had at home. That was a lovely piece of scrap wood we collected… well, I have to admit I don’t remember!
First we collected all the materials: wood board, yarn, nails, tools. As for the yarn, we chose a lovely bamboo we are still using today. Locutus prepared the board in his father’s laboratory. I’ll not indulge in the details of how to make a string art project: we have a proper tutorial and an FAQ page with all the experience we collected over the years.
Having all we needed, we started hammering down the nails. A long process, but in the end we had our board with countless nails on. And then… we faced with the struggle of the proper weaving.
We even made a few mockups on scrap boards to figure out what to do. Choosing the right direction, where to go and weave first, was not at all clear! The Celtic knot had to stand out, be recognisable. Indeed, this was no task for a single person! Also, we faced the two different styles of string art weaving here, the random fill-in and the more geometric Bezièr-curves style. On this project, the geometric Bezièr approach was the one we thought fit.
And here’s where #LRCrafts was born, I suppose.
We worked in pair for the first craft, a specific task for each one. Locutus found his grandfather’s hollow punch for leather and started using that for weaving, I kept a copy of the design and guided him in the apparent mess of nails. It was an intricate forest, where understanding which part of the board belonged to which one on the design was seemingly impossible.
Little by little, the design began to appear on the wooden board. Going on, hour by hour, the more yarn we wove the faster and accurately we proceeded.
It was fun, and seeing our creation taking shape we were delighted!
Yes, I am more and more sure, the more I think about it, that this was indeed the start of #LRCrafts.
Beginning as a small test, a way like another to fill our evenings, it became a social media hashtag on my personal profile, and then… well, if you are here you can figure out the rest!
String art was our first craft together, and many more came after that.
That project, actually, started in October 2016 and was completed in December, so… happy 7th anniversary, #LRCrafts!
