my Christmas vacation

My woven potholder tote!
I used an old button and a looper for a closing.

During my brief break from my day job this holiday season, I actually did a bit of crafting and made this potholder tote bag! No, it's not a bag for toting around potholders, but a bag made up of squares that I created on a potholder loom using loopers.

I used a standard metal potholder loom (eighteen pegs) and 100% cotton loopers from Harrisville Designs. They're quite thick and sturdy and the color selection is great. the body is made up of eight squares (four on a side). The handle, sides and bottom are made of half squares. I made the half squares by just looping at half the number of loopers as usual (nine) and weaving through loopers in both directions. It creates one edge that's a bit different from the others... but that didn't bother me.

Instead of sewing them together with thread, I decided, because of the weight of the final piece, that I'd use loopers to sew them together. I cut the loopers, used a fairly big needle and joined the seams with using loopers... it just seemed sturdier that way.

one side sewn together

I went for a multicolor look for this project since those were the loopers I had on hand. What I like of the Harrisville loopers is that you can purchase bags of loopers of all one color, so if you prefer to work with a certain color combination you can do that.

Although I ddon't care much for sewing together pieces/motifs//squares etc ... in projects, this one was not too bad and I would probably do this one again.

close up of bag

low tech weaving - again

cup o' java on a mug rug

Seems like ages since I've posted, but such is life! I should have known better than to vow I was going to work straight through any pattern book of anything, but I get carried away ... it always seems like a fun idea, but then I get side-tracked and other things catch my attention and well ... I'm off on something else before I know what has hit me.

a mug rug still on the "loom"

In this case, it's been a new ukulele! But enough about that... I have had some time to do a bit of crafting and decided to go very low tech (again ... I discovered this a while back) and whip up a few mug rugs for the holiday season.

When I decide to do these I find a piece of cardboard, cut it to the dimensions I need, make a good number of slots in it and away I go!

Depending on the pattern (or lack thereof) these are really a pretty quick projects to whip up. Easy to do when you're watching a movie or tv show.

lots of mug rugs

I'm pretty new to weaving, but this past summer I bought a small hand loom and tried it out (you can see those results here) and I've been fascinated by what one can do with a potholder loom. Hmm... think I'll dig that out next and see what I come up with!

woven

A few weeks ago I bought myself a small lap loom and decided to try my hand at some basic weaving. I talked briefly about my weaving background or lack thereof, here. So ... now ... the project is finally finished! Here are my pics of process:

In the beginning...

It was fun learning how to change colors

It seems VERY slow going, but also rather rhythmic once you get into it

About at this point it was getting harder, the shed stick doesn't fit in anymore or the shuttles, so I started using a large, blunt plastic needle

Almost there!

Yay! Went as close as I could to the pegs and took it off the loom

Had to spend some time whip stitching around the exposed warp threads to make it look finished

And here's my result! I braided some of the weaving wool for use as a strap. I sewed the sides together and then sewed the braiding onto the purse, also added a button and closing

 I'm sure someone who knows much more about weaving than I do can explain why I got this sort of "bucket" shape to my final product... I'm guessing it's because my warp was not as tight as it should have been. Overall, it was a fun project. Would I do it again? Yes! I can see myself getting into this and if you enjoy working with fibers in general I'd recommend that you give it a try.

webs we weave

I've never done weaving on a big scale before, actually, other than using a potholder loom and fashioning a little loom out of some cardboard, I've never done much weaving at all! To get a taste I got a simple lap loom and have decided to give it a go. It came with one shuttle and I dug out some netting shuttles that I had kicking around from when I tried my hand at netting a few years ago.

It seems like slow work, but maybe that's just because I'm new to it. Think I might experiment with the various colors and see how it goes ... more pics to follow!

low tech weaving

a shot of my work space with low-tech woven pouches

The potholder loom scarf got me thinking more about weaving. It's not a fiber craft I know lots about, nor is it anything I've ever given much of a try, so I decided to do a bit of research. I had seen various large scale weaving looms.. you know, those big ones with a bench that probably make blanket-sized fabrics and would no doubt take up my whole living room, not to mention cost thousands of dollars. Needless to say, as a rank beginning weaver that's just too much too soon... sooooooooo ... I went low tech! I perused a few websites, looked over a few examples and made myself a couple very low tech little cardboard looms.

close up of pouches

I used some scraps of yarn and produced two little woven pouches. The one on the right was my first creation and measures about  3" x 4". The little white one on the left was the second, measuring just under 2" square. These were fun to do and extremely low tech, which I like! I found what I thought were easy to follow instructions for the cardboard loom here.

Wearable Potholders

Soooo.... I decided to play around a bit with some yarn on my potholder loom. I had bought the loom on a whim a few months ago as something to busy myself with over a weekend, and cranked out a few potholders with the nylon strips included with the kit. I can remember making them as a kid and giving them out as Christmas and wedding gifts to the unsuspecting. It quickly came back to me why working with those loops are so annoying! And yet ... weaving squares gets to be addictive! I ended up stitching them together (something I really dislike and is why I try to avoid projects made of multiple "parts" ::shudder::) and giving it a slip stitch border. Here's the result:

close-up of scarf section

I used some leftover yarn to try out the process since I have never used yarn on a potholder loom before. It's a dk/baby/light worsted weight yarn. I got the idea from tweets I had seen from Noreen Crone-Findlay. The lighter weight yarn gives it a "lacier" look.

nine sections joined together

As I mentioned, it does get addictive weaving the squares (or am I just obsessive?), so before I knew it I had used up all the yarn and decided to join them all to make this scarf. Interesting, eh? Looks better in person, really, and I kinda liked the "raggety anne" look of it, especially my joining - I mentioned I hate doing that, right?

a regular metal potholder loom

All in all, it was fun and now I'm thinking of another project. Working with yarn seems so much easier than those pesky loopers despite how happy the little girl is on the box - gotta love those "old timey" boxes they like to sell things in. It felt like 1950 all over again! Not that I was there in 1950 when you were able to "amaze your friends" (lower left hand corner of box) with your potholders.