Featuring 17 beautiful patterns to craft, discover woven wall hangings for mindful making
Yarn Mandalas For Beginners & Beyond
YARN MANDALAS FOR BEGINNERS & BEYOND • Woven wall hangings for mindful making
Introduction
Tools and Materials • Here is a look at the tools and materials used to make the mandalas in this book – it feels like a great place to get started! I’ll also cover some tips in my Mindful Moments that will help with creativity and meditative focus, as well as showing you how to fine tune your skills.
ESSENTIAL TOOLS
HARDWARE • First on my list is the wood I choose (see Choosing Dowels), but carefully chosen tools will also help to make your weaving a pleasure and a success.
CHOOSING YARN
CHOOSING DOWELS
HOW TO BEGIN – SETTING AN INTENTION
Getting Started • We will start with the basics: directions for four-sided mandalas, and then some steps for multi-sided mandala making. In this first chapter you’ll learn how to make the cross at the center of every mandala, how to wrap the dowels, and how to consider tension and change colors. Let’s begin!
PREPARING THE DOWELS • To begin, you will need to cut your dowels to the length you desire. It is more than likely that you will have purchased longer lengths than you actually want to work with, so the first step is to carefully measure and mark the dowel, then cut it down to size. I often measure a minimum of two times end to end to make sure that I have not accidentally slightly moved my sticks. At every stage of the dowel preparation process, it is important that you measure your sticks against one another to ensure that they are all the same length. I will go over this in more detail when I discuss marking the sticks.
CREATING THE FIRST CENTER • This is the starting point for making a four-sided mandala, or the first of two or more centers if you are making a multi-sided mandala.
CREATING A DOUBLE CENTER
TENSION • Wrapping the yarn tight, but not too tight, as you move from arm to arm is something to be aware of throughout your creation. We will continue to visit this skill often as this holds great importance as you move outward from the center of the mandala.
CHANGING COLORS • If you would like to change colors, continue wrapping a circuit until you reach the first arm again. For a 12in (30cm) mandala, I recommend not going much past the first 1in (2.5cm) notch on the dowels while creating the eye, or center diamond, to ensure a well-balanced mandala.
Four-sided mandalas
Insight • In this particular mandala I went with a dark center, which I very rarely do, but since I almost always start with white, I feel it’s important to address the fact that this time, I didn't. Sometimes the dark center makes a statement. For me it is not about avoiding it, it’s just about knowing when to use it. I use a dark center when the effect needs to be simple and not distract from the overall pattern. Because this mandala is small, it is a nice point of focus.
Blue Horizon • Once again I have not chosen white for the eye of this mandala, but instead I selected a soft gray. I find that making this adjustment helps me ‘feel’ my way into color changing more easily, as well as making me focus on color gradients. Attention to the subtle changes around us and within us plays such an important role in our daily life too…This mandala is embellished with tassels, providing another chance to pick up a color from within the design that either subtly tones or introduces a bright contrast.
Earth and Fire • This mandala uses the same techniques as the previous one, but here I played with earth and fire colors to show how they really work together. Using the idea of these elements I began weaving with the softness of the center eye and finished with some simple...