Pin Loom Mouse Sachets, also known as a Catnip Mouse

Here we are in the midst of summer. The one thing we can count on this year is that gardens will grow and flowers will bloom.  So I am reprinting this mouse sachet pattern, thinking that this might be the perfect time to plan out a Lavender mouse or two as fun embellishments or little gifts. 

Introducing the perfect house freshener/ fun cat toy/ unforgettable bookmark or unique sachet to tuck away in a drawer or closet. Make your very own rose petal mouse, lavender mouse, catnip mouse or an "insert-your-favorite-flower-or-scent-here" mouse.

This is one of my earliest patterns. I have been making catnip mice, mouse sachets, and weird little mouse toys for many years because people love them and it is a fun and easy pattern, using one 4"x 4" square and two 2"x 2" squares. They are easy enough to make multiples for craft fairs or church fund raisers.

Consider adding extra value with embellishment such as black beads for eyes or embroidered flowers to give your mice a whole new look. I chose to leave off the stitching for the nose, I think it gives them a cleaner, more modern look.

Enjoy this old pattern and may your home be blessed with pin loom mice!

Newest pin loom winner

The third book and loom winner is:

Cheryl F., Tyler, Texas

I don't have a lot of experience with Pin Looms.  I am new to any kind of weaving.  I have done some yarn weaving on pot holder looms and have a triangle loom.  I am excited to see what I can make with a pin loom.

We have a second winner

Melanie Viney, Merrigum, Victoria
Australia

Melanie is one of the many Pinloomweaving readers who check in  from across the world. She is looking forward to getting her book and loom.

  

Our first book and loom winner: 

Melise Gerber,  Altadena, CA.

You asked me to share a bit more about myself:  I am 47.  My paternal grandmother taught me all kinds of needlework, knitting, crocheting and needlepoint when I was 7 or 8.  I have always loved the feel of hand-woven fabric, and tried learning on a rigid heddle loom, but a traumatic warping experience led to my selling my loom before I ever even used it.

About a year ago, I read about weave-it looms on Ravelry, and was able to purchase one on eBay.  I love weaving little squares on this loom--I especially like seeing the way the weaving changes my expectations for the way hand-dyed yarns work up.  But, so far, I haven't found many projects that I like that can be made with these little squares--and whenever I DO try to make something from them, I am REALLY unhappy with the options I have seen for joining. 

So, I am really looking forward to learning from your book.  Thanks for choosing me for this contest!!

Don't forget that there are going to be pin loom giveaways each month thru December. Its not too late to sign up! 

Pin Loom Dragon

I believe that you can make almost anything out of pin looms and every so often I feel a need to make something different. In this case, a dragon. One day it dawned on me that a 4"x 4" woven square would make a really good dragon wing. And then all I had to do was weave a dragon to attach it to.

Derrick the dragon posing on battlement, actually, front porch.

Pin loom woven dragon in noble profile.

I plan to revisit the concept of weaving a dragon in the future and hopefully will be able to provide everyone with a much fiercer, more noble model.

In the meantime, this is a dragon named Derrick (I think the name fits him). His greatest joy is either playing with cats or eating them, I'm not sure.

Kukla and Ollie

Derrick measures 7" tall and 16"from nose to tail. Kids seem to like him.  His two front teeth were made from two stone beads. Derrick is made from pin loom squares and rectangles with the exception of his ears and mane, which were crocheted.

My intention was create a dragon reminiscent of Ollie the Dragon from Kukla, Fran and Ollie.  I am providing the link for all the people who did not have the opportunity to know Ollie the Dragon when they were young.



After consultation with Derrick it was decided that my original shots did not convey his fun loving but shy demeanor. Further pictures were taken in his favorite location, the herb garden.

Dragon at rest.

Enjoying the basil and lavender.

Never underestimate the power of a mug rug

The yarn is Vanna's Choice Lion Brand "Seaspray Mist".
The other yarns were worsted weight scraps from my collection.

Its summer. This is a great time to kick back with a simple pin loom project.  If you have kids to entertain, its nice to be able to introduce a project that they can accomplish in a day or two.

Plus, its too hot to have half an afghan on your lap while you're putting it together. This is the season for portable projects.
 
My favorite simple project is the mug rug. There are endless variations and we all need a coaster sooner or later.  The mug rugs shown here were made to match the mugs in order to turn a so-so gift into something personalized and special.

To make the coasters shown above, weave a 4" square and add a 2" x 2" poppy colored square, turn into a Loom Bloom by pulling on one horizontal and one vertical line of yarn. Secure the flower with a contrasting color. Make the flower stem by using a running stitch in the darker color. 
 

 Coasters come in such infinite variety. Angela Tong  made the incredible coaster on the right, taking advantage of one of the pin loom's best properties, that its a wonderful medium for cross stitch.  The complete directions can be found at her site, Angela Tong Designs.











Another design from the web - Purlbee offers a kit with Zoom Loom, yarn and instructions for a great set of coasters. 



 Happy summer... happy mug rug making!   Weave on!   Meg

The Whole Pin Loom Enchilada

Here is a quick update on the soon-to-be-published book. Check out the new page right next to the Home page - Pin Loom Weaving; The Book for a look at all the items in the book. I hope that everyone finds a few things that appeal to them.  There isn't much copy attached to the pictures at this point but if you have any questions or comments, please leave them, other people may have the same questions so you can help yourself and someone else.

Also, if you have not signed up yet, keep in mind that the first drawing for Pin Loom Weaving and a pin loom will be held May 31. There will also be a giveaway of book and loom on June 30 and July 31. I will announce at least the first name of the winner, or whatever information that person is comfortable with. Keep in mind that I do not share any email information with anyone except to send out the notes you have received.

A Second Look at the Pin Loom Weaving Book

We are getting near the June 1st publication date and I am about two weeks away from being able to post an organized view of all of the project items from Pin Loom Weaving; 40 Items for Tiny Hand Looms.  In the meantime, this is a look at a few of the pin loom patterns.  Meg

Pin Loom Containers

Here is a not very well guarded secret-- I haunt thrift shops. Well, I don't actually haunt them, I just spend an inordinate amount of time in them, keeping track of when each one is having a sale day, what days they are most likely to put out new stuff and etcetera. I like thrift shops because they display the best, or at least the most popular, items of the past four or five decades, not just of our own time.

So here is where the pin loom container comes in. Every thrift shop worth its salt will have a supply of Tupperware and other hardy plastic ware. If you have an older 4" pin loom, keep an eye out for a sandwich size box that can hold a 4" and a 2" loom.  If you have a variety of looms, keep looking, it is amazing what is available over time. I am particularly partial to the old style Tupperware. They make a pin loom truly portable while keeping it safe and snug. The red topped box to the right is a 6" by 6" Rubbermaid container.

 The box on the left is a really cool bread slice shaped container with attached lid-- no identification except a sticker on the back that says "MADE IN CHINA".

The wooden Loomette is in a FREEZETTE container, popular in the 70's. I think my parents' freezer was full of them.

Not all sturdy plastic containers have to be hunted down in thrift stores. The collection of looms on the right are nested in a Sterlite container, 10.5" x 6" x 2.5" with locking handles. This box came from Target, I've seen similar styles at all the big box stores and craft stores. The cost in the Minnesota region is $2.50 to 4.00.


 I like having room to stick in needles and scissors although if I am going to be on the road for a while, I usually take a separate bag of needles, scissors and other tools. 

I have been crowing about old Tupperware and these two are my favorites. The red box to the left is a 11" x 6.5" x 2", big enough for a bevy of pin looms plus all the necessary equipment. It is extremely sturdy and it cost just a quarter.

Going to thrift stores is all about the thrill of the hunt and I was delighted to find a secure container for my Zoom Loom. The loom comes in a really nice cardboard box but I like to keep my looms in something non-crushable. This loom is now housed in a gorgeous 7" x 7" Tupperware container that cost about a dollar.

Am I happy with these containers? Yes. Do they help to preserve and protect my pin looms? I believe so. Does it make a difference that I got them for a really good price? I am a bit embarrassed to say, "Yes, it thrills me no end!"


What are you using for pin loom containers? Please share your discoveries.  Thanks, Meg

First look at Pin Loom Weaving book

I have been on pins and needles, counting down the days until the Pin Loom Weaving publication date and waiting for the return of the items that will appear in the book. Many of the items are now back and I have started taking pictures to share, you can see some below. However, the publication date has been moved back a month, it is now June 1st, 2014.  AAAAAUGH!

I know that in the larger scheme of things it won't make that much difference, but I am really looking forward to sharing the book with everyone. In the meantime, here is a beginning sample of the Pin Loom Weaving items.

This is my most recent take on a yarn bag. I wanted to make something very simple, very usable. I like the idea that you can make them as deep as needed by adding on extra rounds of weavies.

Dogs and cats... The dogs came first, the rest of the farm animal set (sheep, horse, cow, pig, cat, chicken, house and barn)  followed. The design is variable enough so that you can create your dog favorites and put together your own dog show.

Animals Toddler Blanket... one of my favorites. It offers a number of features including soft, cuddly edges, a colorway and illustrations that will work for little boys or girls. The illustrations are applied with black crochet cotton and are reasonably easy to apply. The heavy lines are made using a crochet hook, fine details added with a tapestry needle. All the instructions and illustrations are available in the book and the book will be available June 1, 2014.

Pin Loom Yarn Bags

There is no rule, as far as I know, that says that all yarn bags must look like something that your Great Aunt Harriet or that scary old lady in the Wizard of Oz would make, but that seems to be the prevailing idea. The upside is that yarn bags are so old fashioned and usable that they never really go out of style.

I think that we are on the verge of a great Yarn Bag Renaissance- at least I hope so. After all, there is an enormous amount of fabulous yarn around these days, we need a few good yarn bags to carry it.

I will modestly confess that I have a pattern for a truly marvelous yarn bag in my book Pin Loom Weaving, now available for purchase. Pictures of all the Pin Loom Weaving items can be found under the page heading, Pin Loom Weaving; The Book.

Here are some other great yarn bags including this vintage bag highlighted on Eloomination.  You can find the pattern for this classic bag at the Eloomination site: http://www.eloomanation.com/gallery/vintage.php

This next bag is crochet but wouldn't it would look great woven with a pin loom? The pattern is available at: http://archive.berroco.com/exclusives/bramble_bag/bramble_bag_lg.html 

My first yarn bag was the product of falling out of love with an earlier project and having a bunch of weavies already made into right triangles. This bag strikes me as the epitome of ugly but useful. It is nice and heavy and will handle all sorts of weaving items. See a simple pattern below. I left out the part about turning the weavies into triangular pieces first, that seems a lot of work for no purpose, but I have posted notes on how to make dual colored weavies to recreate that effect.

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

My original title for this article was "DON'T MAKE THIS" but I have made too many goofy things myself to be lecturing anyone else on what they should or shouldn't weave.

On the other hand, tastes do change over time and while these patterns may have seemed like a good idea when they were published, I don't believe that time has been kind to them.

For example, was there ever a good time to wear a woven bathing suit? I'm thinking not. This was one of two suits introduced in the very first book of Weave-It patterns in 1936.

If you are curious about what the other swimsuit looks like, or you want to copy out the directions so that you can whip something up for this summer, you can see a copy of the entire Weave-It Book at Eloomanation.


The embarrassing aspect of the next entries is that I remember people (me, my friends) wearing fashions like these with great enthusiasm. I don't remember why, maybe it was the drugs.

There is very little excuse for these outfits. The colors are weird, they don't drape well and the multiple rows of crochet between each square takes away from the woven squares that they were supposed to be promoting. (I'm pretty sure that I had a dress just like the one on the lower right and thought it was incredibly cool. We called it a maxi-dress.)

There may be someone reading this today who finds these fashions to be just right. Which goes to show that every style has its day. My personal fashion rule is, "If you wore these fashions the first time, you don't have to do it again."

Soft Boxes - An assembly for 4" pin looms

IN THE JUNGLE SOFT BOX

Soft boxes combine the fun and creativity of pin loom weaving  in a medium size project. A lovely little 3-D box that comes with a canvas on each side.  These boxes were made as gifts. The attached jungle animals and cats are buttons that are usually available at fabric stores.

Each soft box is constructed from twelve 4"x4" squares. The squares were woven on a pin loom, then a single crochet edge was added. The exterior squares were finished with free stitching, buttons and yarn pulled through using a crochet hook to create loops.

FOUR SEASONS SOFT BOX

After completing the embellishment, an exterior weavie is sandwiched with another weavie for the lining (I usually weave a lighter matching color for the interior) with several layers of quilt batting in the middle.

The two woven layers with batting are whip-stitched together. The sides and bottom are whip-stitched to create a box. The top edge of the box is finished with a single crochet row to give it extra structure and to carry the color that was used for joining around the top.

The soft boxes were made primarily with medium weight worsted wool.
You may notice that the background of the "Winter" side of the Four Seasons box is woven with stripes of white and a cream color. This is accomplished by winding one color on the pin loom for the first two layers, then knotting on the second color to use for the third layer of winding and to weave through.

The top of the soft box was made by the same process as the sides with the addition of an extra row of single crochet, chain 2 at each corner, then two rows of half-double crochet with no  added chain stitches to create a box lid. 

ADOBE HOUSE SOFT BOX

The boxes have proved to be very lasting and reasonably useful. Most end up being used primarily as ornaments and holders for jewelry or other personal items. I use one when I travel to protect a glass cologne bottle. They are soft and crushable and easily straightened out at the end of the trip.

One thing that surprises me when making a soft box is just how much weaving and work goes into it. That may sound like an unfortunate admission but what you get out of the work is a small but treasured prize. 

Pin Loom Chickens

Chickens with wings posing with egg

The pin loom chicken pattern was developed a number of years ago and appeared in my first book, Weavies One.

The first chickens had no wings, like the example on the shelf. The wings are an option that offers great little pockets for storing things away that you don't want to lose... unless you forget that you put them in the chicken wing. I find the chickens to have an interesting, if beady-eyed, personality. 

Materials:
Yarn - All of the examples are made with worsted weight yarn and worsted weight chenille yarn plus polyester stuffing and some plastic pellets at the bottom for extra weight and stability.

The original chicken pattern called for all of the pieces to have a single crochet edge and be joined using a whip stitch.

These examples of the chicken pattern also show some of the variations made available by choosing a mix of yarns. For example, the green, wingless chicken was wound with one layer of beige chenille yarn, then finished with a green worsted weight yarn. This worked particularly well because weaving with something very fuzzy, like the chenille yarn, can be difficult. The yarn can break or knot up. By winding the difficult to weave with yarns onto the loom first you can integrate them into the weaving without having to manipulate them so much.

I made one new generation chicken-- shown below with the horizontally striped wing. Instead of using a single crochet edge on each piece and whipstitching together, this chicken is joined using a single crochet to join the two pieces, then the join is turned to the inside. You can see a close up of the two approaches on the Pin Loom Essentials page.

Because the new chicken is a bit smaller due to the difference in joining, the original beak was too big for it. For a smaller beak, I used some yellow fingering yarn to make a lighter weave and folded the 2" x 2" weavie 3 times, to create a small cone.  I also used two 2" x 4" weavies for its wings instead of the 4" x 4" weavies used for wings on the more vintage style chickens.

One of the chickens has apparently laid an egg. The egg was woven with one layer of chenille and an off-white worsted weight yarn. I wove two 2" x 2" weavies that were stitched together with a running stitch, leaving a hole at one corner, then turned inside out and stuffed.

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.