1960's Pin Loom Afghan

One of the most fun parts of going to fiber fairs is meeting and sharing with other pin loom weavers. While I was at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Fair (aka. OFFF), I met Nancy Mills-McHaffie, who was willing to share these cool pictures of a pin loom creation from the 1960's. To quote Nancy:

This embroidered pin loom afghan was designed and made in the 60's for a fundraiser by the South Dakota Eastern Star, Bryant chapter. It was won by Hattie Schanck and, over time, handed down to her granddaughter, Karen Schanck. 

Here is is lying flat on the floor, it is 15 squares wide by 22 squares long, (5" by 7.3").

By the look in these pictures it is in exquisite shape. I am astonished by the amount of work that was put in to the cross-stitching, but if you look at the early patterns for pin looms* many of them have this type of embellishment. I showed the pictures to a weaver friend who thought that it had likely been made from a purchased pattern. Since the old books were all in black in white, I may have seen it before but just didn't recognize it.


I'm really glad to see that the pin loom has its own tradition. I have heard from a number of people about special warm, woven blankets that had been passed down the family for years but nobody knew how it had been made. Now that knowledge is coming to light.

FREE PATTERNS-->  *If you are interested in the old pin loom patterns, check out eLoomaNation.com, the ultimate site for all the old pin loom pattern books. (let me know if you see this pattern among them). In addition to being able to download personal use PDF's of the 30's to 60's pattern books which include interesting historical elements such as pin loom woven women's business suits from the 30's, bedjackets and kid's sailor suits, you will find some great books of weaving patterns, which are just as fun and usable today as ever.

Here's an addition to the story of this classic blanket. Suzanne Eakin of pin loom angel fame as well as swakins note below have found the pattern in WEAVE-IT AFGHANS, Book 4, by Anne Orr. This book of is one of the many available at Eloomanation.com. It looks like the weavers of this particular blanket chose to change the color way from autumn tans, orange and browns to reds.

One more item. This is a picture that was sent to me a long time ago, I don't have a name attached to it.

The interesting thing is that it is probably about as old as the 1960's afghan above, but its kind of a transition piece, with a carefully cross-stitched piece in the middle, surrounded by the lavender/purple squares that are perfectly balanced to a  much looser, more open and lively pattern.

Postage Stamp Quilt Blanket

This blanket was intended as a tribute to a classic Amish quilt with a special note of thanks to the U.S. Post Office.

In 2001 the U.S. Post office issued this series of stamps commemorating the Amish quilt.  I thought that they were all incredible but was particularly drawn to the quilt that reflects a very "pin loom" flavor.

Over the next nine months or so I wove and constructed my Postage Stamp Blanket. As with the Amish Bars blanket, they are not lined or quilted, the weigh of the woven fabric is quite warm enough without extra layers.

This blanket is close to six foot square.

Here is the beginning of those middle squares, made with one 4"x 4" square and topped with two light blue squares, whip stitched in place.

The blanket was made with 2" x 2" squares, 2" x 4" squares, 4" x 4" squares, 2" x 6" squares, 4" x 6" squares, and 6" x 6" squares. Most of those looms were Weavette Looms, which came out with all six sizes.

It uses three shades of green for the 2" line around the 9 square design, 3 shades blue plus a slate blue and a very dark navy blue. Plus the red.

All of the woven pieces in the blanket were finished with a single crochet edge in the same color, then whip stitched to join. You might notice that the small squares above do not have a crochet edge, that was so that they would sit within the dimensions of the 4" x 4" square.

Below the middle panel is finished, I'm working on the panels to the right and left.

When a blanket gets this big it is amazing how many rectangles are needed for the border!

           A just-finished blanket. The edging is a line of half double crochet in navy.

This is a later pattern for the blanket with a few proposed color variations.  This Amish pattern lends itself to a number of colorways.

Have fun with this. If anyone decides to make a new version of the blanket, I would love to see the results!  MS

Rosebud - pattern for a pin loom blanket

This is a blanket made using 2" x 2", 4" x 4", 2" x 4" and 4" x 6" pin looms. It measures 50" x 60" (126 cm x 152 cm). My intention was to capture the flavor of an Amish quilt, with the joins between the individual weavies substituting for the quilting. It is called "Rosebud" because that was the idea for the stylized flower in the corner of each piece.

As with any quilt pattern, the variety of pieces in each block opens the possibility of tremendous variability in the final design. Personally, I like the simplicity of using a dominant color for most of the weavies, letting the bit of color in one corner stand out.

My concern in using one dominant color for the blanket was that it would feel flat, that it wouldn't have enough texture. I decided to add texture by deliberately buying a few skeins of navy yarn at a time, ensuring that the colors of the blocks would vary and that I could afford to buy the yarn.

The blocks were primarily made separately. I would weave enough weavies for one or two blocks, then join them and add a crocheted edging to each. That way I could put them away until I had the 30 needed for the blanket.



One feature that I consider an advantage to using pin looms is that it is not as important to match colors in an exquisite manner. Many people have had the experience of finding that the yarn they want to use comes from two dye lots, almost but not quite a match. With pin looms it is possible to separate those different dye lots in a pattern so that the difference is indiscernible. Or you can feature the differences.


The Rosebud blanket was assembled by using a single crochet edge on each weavie, then whipstitching the weavies together. That has been one of my favorite approaches to joining items because I feel that the edging matches the weight of the pin loom fabric. But as you can see with Rick Fahrenbruch's work, there is no need to edge the individual pieces in order to get a finished look. I am going to write at least one article on various approaches to joining weavies together for this blog, as well as have a bunch of information on approaches to joining in Pin Loom Weaving.

The Prism Afghan -exploring color variation with pin looms

I wove and constructed the Prism Afghan shortly after getting my 2" x 4" Weavette Loom. It was such a thrill to be able to weave a rectangle. My intention was to weave a blanket in two contrasting colors with one color going from dark in the middle to light on the outside, the other color going from dark on the outside to light in the middle. The third color, in the little blue squares, does not change at all. It looks as though it does due to the other color variations.

This blanket is joined in a two step process. Each weavie is finished with a row of single crochet in the same color as the weaving. The pieces are assembled using a whipstitch. When I whipstitch two different colored weavies together, I either use a completely separate color-- if that will add to the composition, or as in this case, I use one of the one of the two colors from the weaving. My rule for choosing which color to use is, whichever color you want to emphasize, use the other color to complete the whipstitch.

This afghan was made entirely with Red Heart yarns, which was all I could afford at the time and offered the variation of colors that I needed. Making an afghan with a single yarn type and manufacturer lets it go together a little better. The cloth seems to lay more evenly. However, that asset is offset by the differences in texture and design that can be captured by the use of more than one yarn type, which is very important to me.

Blankets and afghans, big projects from little looms

Here is my confession right up front. The reason that I have woven blankets and hangings and bowls and every possible thing that I could think of in little squares of woven fabric, a.k.a. "weavies", is that I LOVE weaving on pin looms.  I believe that they represent the crack cocaine of weaving.

Weavers all secretly (or not so secretly) know that weaving is addictive. It makes you feel good. It is calming and energizing at the same time. It gives voice to creativity and allows it a concrete, whole-body expression. The downside of weaving is that it can take a lot of time and space. Pin looms are little. The most popular size is 4 inches by 4 inches. You get all the good feelings of weaving in an intense little package.The downside (or the upside, depending on how you look at it) is that you end up with lots of little squares. The projects shown below are all proof that I love weaving on pin looms.

 

A Victorian House

This was modeled after a house in Tucumcari, New Mexico. One of the things I love about designing with weavies is that it gives a wonderful primitive look that I like very much.

Nine Square Afghan

The next several blankets owe their design to Amish quilts and, along with the house, were some of the earliest items I made. One of the challenges of using pin looms is joining them. If you look in the instruction books from the 40's and 50's, you will see clothing and blankets where the weaver tried to join the squares so as to make it look like a larger piece of whole cloth. It never works. You can always see the join lines. So I decided to highlight the the fact that these blankets are made from tiny pieces by incorporating colored patterns and using a joining approach that did not try to be seamless. All of these pieces, except parts of the house, were joined by using a single crochet around each weavie and then whipstitching them together.

Amish Postage Stamp Blanket

This blanket was based on a postage stamp that celebrated Amish quilts. It did not take forever to make but at the time it felt like it was going to take forever.

Diamond Square

It was only after I finished this blanket that I thought, "wow, those edges would be a great place to use a bias loom." Since then I have made some smaller throws using weavies and bias loom weavies and it worked pretty well. We can talk more about the ups and downs of the bias loom later.

 

 Minnesota Winter Blanket

I call it that because it took almost a whole winter to complete it and it is too large to be a afghan, its a real blanket. I recommend starting a project like this in the summer, that way by the time you are ready to start attaching all the pieces, its getting cold and you may actually want to hold it on your lap.

Dragon Blanket 

This is a picture of a blanket made for the daughter of a family who had a connection to the Renaissance Fair.  I wanted to make something slightly feminine but dragony. It was not an easy pattern to carry off. I finally accomplished it by making a full sized pattern and then just weaving squares and filling in the parts. Making a blanket like this is such an adventure. I spend about a third of the time feeling lost, pretty certain that I'd taken on an impossible task. And then, somehow, it came together and was so much fun. And it looks great! Or at least as good, though different, than I originally saw it in my head.