The Camping Crafts Corner #2: God's Eye

I can remember creating these stick-and-yarn crafts back at the Methodist Church Camp I went to during the summers when I was little.  For the eternal life of me, :-) I couldn't tell you what the religious significance of them were.  Wikipedia takes it way off into the mystic realm, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't the message at this very conservative little camp in Glen Rose, TX way-back-when.  Huh.  Learn something different every day I guess.

Ok, on to our craft: a God's Eye.... or Sticks-and-Yarn.  *shrug*

This one's pretty simple - you'll need the following supplies:

Sticks (about the same diameter and length)

and Yarn (any kind will do!)

Tie the two sticks together so that the create a cross, and secure tightly with the end of your piece of yarn.

Since I was the only one partaking in this crafting session (RDB was napping and Diesel, well, I had to steal my skein of yarn back from him at one point!) I didn't cut off a piece of yarn - but if you're doing this with several kiddos, cut each kid a piece that's about one yard long and if they go thru that, you can always tie another piece of yarn on.

The assembly for these are pretty simple from this point, you wrap the yarn over-under-across each twig working your way out from the center in a pattern....

And repeat...

And repeat again...

And that's really about it.  If you want to get 'fancy' you can switch directions at some point (like I did) and that will put your weaving opposite to what you had been (the pattern is still the same over-under-across just in the opposite direction). This adds an opposing layer to your weave.

And then its...

You get the point.

Once your God's eye is as big as you desire, you can tie off the end with a simple knot.  Easy simple craft, lots of meditation-repetitive mantra and hand motions.  It kept me throughly distracted for at least half an hour.

Ya know, maybe that was the significance of these way-back-when? A half an hour that the camp counselors could zone out while we went over-under-across, over-under-across, over-under-across....