Pin loom weaving with Scrubby Yarn

Happy New Year!
This has been a great day for me because I learned something new. No. It was even better than that because I learned that I had been completely wrong about an earlier assumption that stalled me out for a couple years, and then I learned I was wrong.

I have to confess that I spent a number of years thinking that it was not possible to use Scrubby yarn on a pin loom. If you haven't seen this product, it is a 100% polyester yarn that is made for making dishcloths or scrubbies. It has a fringe of twisted yarns that makes it very effective for washing and scrubbing dishes and it doesn't hold bacteria easily.

Because of the multitude of twists and fringe in the yarn, I was convinced that I couldn't weave with it, and I found that thought to be very frustrating.

I was so convinced that I couldn't weave with it that I only tried weaving with one layer of the scrubby yarn, adding a single crocheted edge to the planned dishcloth. I created something that was so ugly that it could possibly cause flashbacks to the 70's.  I am going to share it with you below, I feel that I should take responsibility for at least some of my embarrassing creations.

The point of this confessional is that it took me about THREE YEARS to get over assuming that I already knew the answer and just sit down and  try weaving with Scrubby yarn at which point I found out that it weaves up beautifully. I wove the 6"x 6" square on the right earlier today and it makes a supple, thick cloth with a lovely pattern and its going to make a great dishcloth (and who knows how many other uses?)

Once I got started weaving with the Scrubby yarn it was hard to stop. I decided to make a flower scrubby, which is a stack of 4"x 4" squares, each turned into a flower and then stacked to become and really cute, handy pot scrubber. You can see all the directions for making the woven scrubby HERE/

I wove four 4"x 4" squares for the scrubby (but only used three of them). They came out with a great plaid look. I wove one larger, 6"x 6" square to use as a flat dishcloth. The yarn is not super easy to weave, you can run in to problems with the loops. Whenever I had problems pulling my needle and yarn through the weaving, I stopped, found the yarn loop that was holding it back (which was easy because it was straightened out, not curly) and cut it. That didn't hurt the cloth at all.

I ended up using three 4"x 4" squares and weaving one 2"x 2" for the Scrubby flower. I added a short crocheted chain, using two ends of Scrubby yarn, to make a handle for it. The Scrubby flower came out really well but it is so fuzzy that it does not photograph very well.

So here is the first thing that I've learned in 2020. I am going to try diligently not to make assumptions, get frustrated and then give up. I am going to work to keep an open mind and spent this year exploring ways to make brand new mistakes.  I hope that 2020 offers you many opportunities to try new things, too.  Margaret Stump