Looms

meritaten

pulliptears wrote: »

Can anyone tell me the name of the loom which you can move around? We've got a couple of fixed looms but DD wants a specific one for some design she's seen and I have no idea what they are called.

Yes, that's the original loom, its called the Rainbow loom. the rows come apart and its essential for some designs.
they cost about £15 - but do shop around as you can get 'lookalikies' for about £5, very similar, but ever so slightly smaller so they don't fit together.
I believe Smyths sell the 'Rainbow' loom and you can get them from Amazon or Ebay.
I think its a wonderful way for kids to express their creativity - both boys and girls. last weekend I taught my 16 year old grandson the basics and he went home with a good stash of bands! mostly black, white and the neon colours- plus a bag of World cup colours - blue yellow and green.

nanto3girls

11year old granddaughter been here all weekend, making them.Some of them do look very nice, especially when she uses certain colour combinations.

geoffky

I have dated a few looms..

tillyenna

LOL - I don't have kids, and I'm looking into getting myself one, after spending the weekend with my goddaughters, who wanted me to help with their more complicated designs - they pretty quickly got bored with the tricky ones, and I spent the whole weekend 'looming' - £1.50 in the works you say? Might be going on a trip out at lunchtime :-D

fivetide

My lad is covered in the things. Got given loads by industrious classmates and then started making his own.


As others have said though, latest fad but at least one that is creative and fairly cheap! Also something you can do with them and great for the less sporty.

fireyfirenze

my 7 year kid niece got a pack of these plus a loom for her birthday on Sunday and we got them out for a play later on. I was watching videos on YouTube on how to make them and after about 45 minutes I gave up! I just couldn't work it out. I'm assuming they're really simple to do as all the kids are doing them but I found it complicated, I've never been the most crafty of people though and don't have much attention span at the moment!

kingfisherblue

My son made me an owl from loom bands, which I attached to my keyring. My Brownies were very impressed!

meritaten

fireyfirenze wrote: »

my 7 year kid niece got a pack of these plus a loom for her birthday on Sunday and we got them out for a play later on. I was watching videos on YouTube on how to make them and after about 45 minutes I gave up! I just couldn't work it out. I'm assuming they're really simple to do as all the kids are doing them but I found it complicated, I've never been the most crafty of people though and don't have much attention span at the moment!

start with a basic one. the ones made on the loom itself can be very complicated - so I would say start with a nice Fishscale (or fishtail, I have heard them called). the kids make these on their fingers but my hands cant cope with that so I bent a cable needle in half and do them on that (the grandkids all demanded one too!)
to start put one band twisted into a figure 8 on your index and third finger of your non-dominant hand. then put on two more bands without twisting them. now you can either use the hook provided or your fingers to take one side of the rubber band you put on first......up and over your finger and let it rest on the last rubber band...........do the same with the other side of the first rubber band,,,,,,,,,,,,add another band and repeat. its that simple. use the S clips or C clips provided to join it up when your bracelet or necklace is long enough.
even though this is so simple, colour combinations are endless! so you dont have to make two the same. and they are quick to make once you get the hang of it.
hope this helps

iammumtoone

Got one :T

ds wasn't quite capable of doing it on his own, he could do the fishtail but got bored as it took him too long. So we looked on youtube and made some charms a pokemon ball and minecraft creeper. He put the bands on the loom and I did the hard bit of looping them in place. It was quite tricky, I bent the plastic stick I am going to dig out a crochet hook to use next time.

for a couple of quid it was good fun. something we could do together the only thing was for something that doesn't involve playing on the PC we ending up using/watching the computer to make them :rotfl::mad: Does anyone know of a book or site you can print the instructions from?

Low on loops now, I must resit popping out of work again tomorrow to get some more

meritaten

some people like charms, some prefer to make fishtails and others like to do 'flat' bands like the 'hexafish'.

my DIL is brilliant at charms - I don't enjoy doing those, so do bracelets and necklaces using either a plain fishscale or hexafish or my own beaded designs. its such a creative process you find your own 'thing'!
btw for the more advanced its possible to do mobile phone covers, Ipod covers and Tablet covers. I don't think I am ready for that yet - but don't they sound great?

btw - a crochet hook is brilliant - a size 3.00 or bit less, mine is 2.50 - but the grandkids preferred the 3.00