How to Avoid MIS-Adventures in Pin Loom Weaving—Trouble Shooting

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As of today, the following information is as accurate as I can make it based on my 16 months of experience with the pin loom. Feel free to comment if you have other experiences or questions. While this post is meant as a trouble-shooting post for beginning weavers, I’m also including extra information so it will all be in one place. The information herein will serve as a glossary until I get a separate one made.

***Remember you can click on a photo to enlarge it. Click the back arrow to return to this post.

ANATOMY OF THE PIN LOOM

Pin looms have a frame and pins. Many pin looms have pins grouped (generally) in threes (three of the corners have different groupings). We call this a “three-pin configuration.” The Loomette’s pins are not arranged this way, but you can still weave with it as you would a three-pin configured loom.

The loom has four corners, three of which are numbered on the Weave-it and Weavette; Zoom Loom numbers all four of its corners. Loomette doesn’t number the corners, but there’s a notch for anchoring the yarn at corner 1.

From L: Weave-it, Loomette, Zoom Loom

From L: Weave-it, Loomette, Zoom Loom

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Pin Loom Weave-Along, Week 3—“Lattice Borders”

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“Lattice Borders,” from the Weave-it Magic Squares booklet, is a simple and versatile pattern. It’s somewhere between an overall pattern and a picture pattern, and would make a great border design on a scarf or blanket. It looks great in single or several colors, but variegated yarn is not recommended as the details of the pattern will likely be lost.

"Lattice Borders"--single color; this sample featured a mistake in the pattern. It has since been corrected.

“Lattice Borders”–single color; this sample originally featured a mistake in the pattern. It has since been corrected.

When I wove the sample pictured above, I made a mistake I didn’t notice till I took the square off the loom. “Rats!” I thought, planning to start over. Instead I went on to make the already warped two-color sample of the same square. While I wove I recognized the “blessing in disguise:” I could demonstrate how to fix a mistake in a square after it’s off the loom. Watch for that mini-tutorial later in this post.

"Lattice Borders" in two colors--warped L 1&3 in mc, L2&4 in cc.

“Lattice Borders” in two colors–warped L1 & 3: mc/L2 & 4: cc.

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Saturday’s Deaccumulation and Replacement Accumulation

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We got rid of a bunch of stuff today (Saturday). Company’s coming next week and we must have room to unfold the hide-a-bed couch. Stacks of stuff were loaded into the car (Polly had to stay home because there wasn’t room for her) and we drove to D.I. (Deseret Industries–local thrift store). About six guys (it took six) swarmed our car and unloaded everything quick as a wink. All those books and DVDs and old clothes and other rummage that had been piling up like a castle in the middle of the downstairs floor for–what? like, five months–were gone, poof, like Brigadoon. Read More →

Adventures in Pin Loom Weaving—Your Beading Heart

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Someone asked me to make  a video on using beads in a heart shape for the pin loom. As much “fun” as it is to make a video, I’d rather hold off to see if it’s totally necessary. For instance, the heart pattern I made up is so similar to the Single Outline Diamond that, in a video, a lot of the information would be repetitious. Furthermore, printed instructions, a pattern, and photos would be just as, if not more, helpful–in my opinion (which bears a lot of sway with me)–than a video. And another thing–I need some outside opinions on the finished product before I make a final decision.

Let’s start with the design.

For lack of a better title, I'll it "Single Outline Heart"

For lack of a better title, I’ll call it “Single Outline Heart”

I’m getting faster at figuring these graphs out, but it’s still considerable effort. Though I have access to a computer weaving-draft whatcamajiggy, I still prefer to draw the design out by hand, erase, redesign and redraw on another section of the piece of graph paper. The photo above is the third version of the heart I designed.

Why didn’t I make the sides (Rows 8-12) a straight line? Because you can’t. The warp strands won’t be woven in if you go U-3 in the same spot in four rows. Trying to figure out in my head (and on paper) if I could manipulate the Layer 2 strands (I think they’re called picks) yielded dissatisfying results–though I may still try it just to see how the heart looks.

18 MAY 2017 UPDATE: You can make it appear as though there is a straight line on R8-12 by plain weaving on rows 8 and 10. This will yield a thinner-looking line and the absence of any pattern stitches will not be noticeable. Leaving the bead off those rows will be more noticeable, but I still think it will look better.

MATERIALS

yarn

30 beads with holes large enough to accommodate yarn (I used 6/0 Rocaille, or seed, beads) Read More →