Pics and Bullet Points

The Little Looms Group is giving May's Guild Meeting presentation. Our group will be sharing 11 types of Simple Looms: Rigid Heddle, Inkle/Card Weaving, Tapestry, Potholder, Round, Pin, Frame/Boom/Minnow, Back-strap, Kumihimo, Wave, and Nature weaving.

My topic is the Potholder Loom. "Dust off your 'ol Potholder Loom and have some fun!"

My Bullet Points:

• Portable: Take your Works in Progress anywhere. (Pic weaving on the couch and pic at the beach.)

• Fun: Scratch that creative itch with unique color combinations as well as Color-and-Weave effects.

•  Inexpensive: Weave with Kitchen Cotton yarns using Continuous Strand method to create functional and practical potholders and hot pads.

 

 

• Enjoy

 

Potholder Revisited

Picked up the small 7" Potholder loom again for more Continuous-Strand weaving. My goal was to weave a thicker potholder.

The earlier potholders were made with 2-strands of cotton yarn held together for both warp and weft. (Remember: Two-strands of yarn goes around the potholder "peg" thereby doubling the yarn to 4-strands in each row.) The potholders work nicely as a rug mug or trivet but seemed flimsy when carrying a hot pot.

 

 

The first sample was warped with 2-strands then I added an additional weft strand when I started to weave. The 2-warp/3-weft resulted in a nice firm cloth. I counted twenty-seconds before I could feel the heat from a hot stove when I tested it for heat resistance. 

 

 

Next I wove 3-strands for both warp and weft. It made a very dense, stiff cloth with almost thirty-seconds of heat resistance on a hot stove.

 

 

  

  

 

 

I was hoping I would like making the 3-warp/3-weft potholder. I gave it my best shot but decided that weaving with 3-strands was not a pleasurable experience: it was easy to make mistakes (skips) and the last few rows were a challenge with the tight tension. It was just not fun.

Instead I opted to weave the potholders with 2-strands of warp/3-strands of weft.

 

 

  

Beach Day

Rain is in the forecast for Sunday so today we headed to the beach with the camper.

 

 

  

Coming Soon: Potholders Revisited

Drats, I just deleted the entire post I have been working on this evening (and I can't get it back).

Here's a teaser photo till next time.

What If?

 

 

Beachy Keen

Another 10" potholder:

Warping

 

 

Weaving - Under, Over

 

 

Weaving - Over, Under

 

 

Binding Off

 

 

This potholder gives me a beach vibe.

 

 

Yes, very beachy colors.

 

Finishing

 Finished Stephen King's "Holly", I read half of the book as an e-book and listened to the last half.

 

Library audiobook

Wet-finished several Potholders.

 

 

Color Catchers are a weaver's friend.

 

 

Over Under

 As I was binding off the last row on the 10" potholder I found a mistake, a skip.

 

 

Only one thing to do: I unwove the whole thing and started again.

 

Weaving with a little loom, simple weaving, is the best.

Hot and Cold

It got up to 110.1° today. We didn't stick around to watch the thermostat climb, instead we headed to the Coast. Mattie whined all the way, not sure if it was excitement or from being enclosed in a soft crate.

 

 

It was a nice clear day but surprisingly windy and cold.

 

 

I didn't bring warm clothes but I brought all of my craft projects: knitting (socks and charity scarves), both potholder looms and new yarn, EEW Nano and 4 empty bobbins along with the HS Base12 fiber, a book, and my daily notebook with my pencil case.

 

I didn't get to everything but I managed to spin 3 bobbins of fiber (TdF: day 8).

 

I wove on the smaller potholder loom and the Potholder Pro is warped and ready to go.

 

 

Sunrise Plus

Last month I combined two different colorways - both with a similar red-orange - to weave on the Potholder loom.

 

The top pic is Coral Seas Ombre.

The bottom pic is Coral Seas Ombre combined with Sunrise Ombre.

It's fascinating to see what happens when colors are woven together.

So, I combined Sunrise Ombre with Earth Ombre. Wow.

 

 

Another process I wanted to try: Wet finishing. As Laura Fry says, “It’s not finished until it’s wet-finished.”

After the potholder was off the loom I wove in the ends (kept the tails long), then poured boiling water over the cloth and let it sit. Just in case the colors bled I added small pieces of Color Catcher.

 

 

When dried the woven cloth shrank a little and became thicker and more dense: nice firm potholders.

 

Two for Tuesday

 Let's make (smaller) potholders ~

One, Two

It was a nice day to sit outside and bind off the completed potholder.

 

For the next one I decided to combine the same yarn - Coral Seas Ombre with a second yarn - Sunrise Ombre. Two different colorways but with a similar red-orange.

 

Cool beans, I like it.

 

 

Yes, well, I like it so much that the smaller "Traditional" 7" potholder loom jumped into my Amazon cart. Oops.

 

Potholders Again

A few years ago I made potholders with the Potholder Pro loom and still have a few stashed away.

Not too long ago I put a new hot pad on the countertop before placing the warm dish on it. The Man picked up the woven cloth and said, "This is nice you should make more of these."

Hoo boy, that sounded like crafty encouragement to me.

But, hehe, silly me I had destashed the Potholder looms in 2019 on Ravelry.

But then again, I couldn't let The Man down so I got another Potholder Pro loom and it's been great fun weaving on the little loom again.

 

 

 

Instead of Potholder Loops I weave with Lily Sugar and Cream kitchen cotton yarn held double and I gotta say the colors in my Box-O-Yarn will make many happy hot pads or potholders.

 

Not Just For Kids

Just in time for Christmas, The Man found a gently-used bike for himself at Goodwill. At the same time, I found a small potholder loom. It was a good day for both of us. The new, unused Harrisville Designs metal potholder loom was priced at $1.50. I knew it was worth ten times that amount. I recognized Harrisville Designs as the family-owned New Hampshire company that makes textiles, yarns, and various weaving looms. This was no cheap-o imported plastic loom.

We all had one of these looms as a kid, I think mine was red. And I'm sure everyone probably remembers weaving on the little potholder loom with the day-glo acrylic loops. I guess no one thought about the dangers of acrylic during those days. Compared to natural fibers, acrylic- a petroleum-based fiber, is highly flammable, melts as it burns and is difficult to extinguish. Yikes!

Although my loom came with colorful cotton loops I wanted to use my own yarn. At first I thought I would need to tie loops together but then I found a YouTube video by Noreen Crone-Findlay, demonstrating a continuous warp and weave with yarn. Yay, for using the yarn stash!

I gave it a try and wove a few cotton yarn samples. Using variegated yarns makes it easy-peasy. Using two colors a little more challenging especially since I wanted the edging to be one color. I single-crocheted an edge on one but it's a little too granny for me. On another I made a fringe by hemstitching the edge which was time-consuming. The fringe looks good but defeats the purpose of a speedy quick project.

And though they're nice and heat-resistant (tried it on the hot and heavy cast iron skillet) they're a little small with a finished size of 6" x 6".  Hmmm, let's see, fairly quick and easy to make, useful, very attractive, washable, but a little small.  No problem:

Harrisville Designs Potholder Pro 10" x 10" Loom.

New Toys Fiber Tools

Both sizes work good together as a set. Hot Pots, we've got you covered.