Laser Cut Looms for a Collaborative Art Installation

This collaborative art installation activity was originally created for the Boulder Public Library District Makerspace for Boulder Fiber Fest in 2024. The idea is simple– pick up a hexagon-shaped “loom” and create a piece of yarn-art to contribute to the collection (or take it home if you don’t want to leave it). You can create a warp and weave, or freestyle and come up with your own unique designs. The hexagon shape allows each of the pieces to fit nicely together using a few jump rings. What I love about this project is that anyone can contribute from professional weavers to young children. The art installation is more interesting when you have a wide variety of makers contributing to it!

1. 1/8" birch plywood
2. ~9mm jump rings
3. Assorted yarn
4. Plastic tapestry needles

The looms pictured in most of the photos of this project are in the style of the first photo– holes on each of the hexagon's sides, and flat edges. Adding the "comb" shapes to the outer edges made it faster and easier to warp. This led to trying all kinds of different styles. The more complicated shapes can take longer to laser cut. I suggest picking the design you like best.

The files below have all of the loom styles included.

You can also tinker with the design and adjust parameters like size, or number of holes on Cuttle: cuttle.xyz/@cemocuttle/Hexagon-Looms-Hvx6H9Wxcz9N

This design works well with 1/8" birch plywood. A thinner plywood might be too fragile, and a thicker plywood isn't really necessary. Try to adjust your laser settings so that you’re using the least power possible and the highest speed to cut the wood, this will leave less charring on the looms.

You don't need fancy, new yarn for this project. I like visiting our local creative reuse store and picking up an assortment of colors and textures.

Weave, create a pattern, make a random design. The possibilities are endless!

If you're doing this activity with a group, or in a public space here are some tips to think about:

1. I like using plastic tapestry needles for this activity. You might want needle-threaders to help with threading the needles. You can also add a little bit of painter's tape on the end of a length of yarn to make a "shoelace", which can be a good replacement for tapestry needles
2. It's helpful to warp some of the looms in advance (like in the first photo), that way people can start weaving right away
3. Experiment with different ways of preparing materials and organizing the art-making environment if you're trying this activity out in a public space. During Fiber Fest, we added looms to our installation as soon as they were finished. In a gallery space, we put out a container to hold finished looms until we could get out into the gallery and add them to the display.

~9 mm jump rings work well for connecting the looms together.

You can consider adding a larger piece of wood at the top of the art piece to connect the looms to. Our first iteration used a piece of scrap wood. Our second version used a nicer piece of wood that was laser engraved.