DIY: The Art Of Mat Weaving As Cultural Heritage

Hello everyone! How are you all my friends? It's been awhile since my last post here due to bad internet connectivity due to the previous typhoon. There were massive disconnection and all we did was wait and wait until all the toppled posts were changed to concrete posts! Anyways, the home based school activities was resumed and as a guardian of Antonia, granny me has to assist her with her outputs. One of which is Mat Weaving. The parents are expected to help their students when it comes to home projects but of course, we leave the academics on their hands. MAPEH subjec involves Music, Arts, Physical Education and Health.

Needed materials:

1. Construction papers
2. Pair of scissors
3. Glue
4. Graphing paper
5. #2 Carbon pencil

Weaving falls under Arts subject. It is one of the cultural arts of the olden times with cultural and traditional history attached to it especially in the Philippines and other Asian countries. Well, it's easy as eating pie because it's my forte as you've seen in my previous works of art, right? Antonia also loved watching me while I do the weaving and she often volunteers in helping me just like my kids during their younger days.:)

To start with, we must cut the construction papers into strips according to desired size. Here, I've cut it about 1cm which is the ideal size in mat weaving.

As illustrated in their modules, mat weaving was one of the livelihood of various tribes in the Philippines wherein they used the kind of materials that are present in their localities such as tikog, pandan, nipa, bamboo, nito,rattan, etc. Each have specialties on how they're weaved and molded into lovely and beautiful mats, bags, baskets, chairs, hummocks, etc. You only need to use your creativeness and the willingness to learn this work of art!

As you can see, the strips are cut into the same sizes for consistency and uniformity. While inserting the strips, make it as close as possible to make a fine and durable mat.

After all is done, it's time to follow the pattern you've chosen by inserting the strips. This style is done for small pieces such as placemats and centerpieces.

The insertion of red strips must start from the middle too.

The actual design is now wider compared to that in the graphing paper.

That is now the finished product. Beautiful color combinations will certainly bring harmony to your finished product.

I hope you like it guys and thank you once again for your time. Doing it yourself will surely lead to a small business given the chance!