Elementary Art: God’s Eye

Hi Everyone! I know I made a weaving project yesterday. This one is a little different. Your young ones might know how to do this one with popsicles sticks but I think it is more exiciting to use actual sticks. Start by taking your kid on a walk. Tell them to look for a couple sticks. You want the stick to be strong. If it isn’t, it might break during your project. This project is called a God’s Eye. A God's eye (in Spanish, Ojo de Dios) is a spiritual object made by weaving a design out of yarn on a wooden cross. Often several colors are used. They are commonly found in Mexican and Mexican American communities, among both Indigenous and Catholic peoples. I hope you all give it a shot and let me know what you think!

Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God's_eye

Materials

These are the materials you will need for this project.

-Yarn

-2 Sticks (or popsicles)

Cross Them

Make the two sticks look like the letter X.

Add Yard

To add the yard, lay it flat underneath the middle of the X shape.

Tie A Knot

Tie a knot in the middle of the X

Wrap It

Wrap it around multiple times then crisscross it and wrap more. You want the middle to be very sturdy. It should stay in that X shape unable to move.

Ready To Start?

You will first loop the yarn around 1 of the 4 sides.

Cross Over

Cross over to the side directly next to it. Go Over the top of that side and loop around

Repeat!

After you loop around, move to the next side. Go over the top and loop it around again.

Keep Going!

It’s important to always loop around the top first.

Square

You will start to see a square show up. If you can see that square shape you are looping correctly.

Changing Color

After you get a good start you can start to change the color/type of yarn. To do that all you have to do is take one end of the old yarn and tie it to the new yarn.

Tie It

Make sure it is tied together well.

Keep Going!

After you tie it, keep going without changing what you were originally doing. Over, loop, move, repeat.

Lots Of Color!

Changing the colors will create different pattern and designs. You can change the color as many times as you’d like.

Are You Done?

The awesome thing about this project is you can finish whenever you think it’s done.

Want To Hang?

Take a string/yarn and tie it to one of the 4 sides. Tie the opposite end of the string/yarn to one side over.

It Hangs!

You can now make it a wall piece if you’d like.

Check It Out

Check out those awesome patterns you made!

Make More!

Try making different sizes. The kids I taught in camp use to love making small ones. They are quick to make when you get the hang of it.

Finished

I hope you’ve enjoyed this project. Stay tuned for more!