Weaving Slings On A Winter's Day

It whas been several months ago when I tried making a sling using hemp that I found at one of those chain craft stores. I was very unsatisfied with the cord because it was so stiff and didn't blend well when braided. One good thing about the cord was that it was very consistent in diameter and probably better suited for making beaded necklaces. The sling functioned fine but I didn't like the look of my first hemp cord sling.

Well yesterday I stumbled across a great old school and locally owned hobby shop. Probably one of the last few standing. It was awesome! They had everything a hobbiest would want from model planes, trains, weaving, doll house making, plastics, beads, clay... everything. At any rate they had hemp cord so today I made a few slings using this new cord. It was windy and snowed all day so it was a good day to spend indoors making slings.

Here is a couple of slings I made using this new cord. The hemp was soft and easy to braid, blended well but had numerous lumps that had to be thinned out to get a good braid. It was a little more work to get even braids but I am happy with the end result.
Since I made some smaller sling ammo, I had to make a smaller sling.

 

As a side note, the work pad I use to photograph my work has one inch by one inch squares so it should give an idea of completed project proportions. 

EDIT November 12: I am not a weaver and I have only tinkered around with weaving on a few small items. As for sling making, I have wanted to make a good woven multi-strand sling for some time now. 

I don't have a loom and I didn't want to just go out and buy one; what if I didn't like weaving? Well sometimes you just have to think outside of the box and creatively make due with the resources you have available to you at the time.

Here's what I came up with from what I had lying around the house. With a stick used to hold open the bedroom window, two wine bottle corks found in the back of the silverware drawer, rubber hair ties (thanks to my wife and daughters), hair combs and chopsticks I made this loom that I used to make the slings pictured above.