The secret of the Pin Loom Biscornu

So what do you get when you sew two 4" pin loom squares together and stuff them?  A puffy square, right? Not if you're Caroline Fylpaa, who has mastered the secret of the Biscornu.  

To quote Wikipedia: A biscornu is a small, 8-sided, stuffed ornamental pincushion-like object. A button is typically secured in the center of the cushion to give a small depression on the top. Beads, tassels and other objects can decorate the biscornu. They are typically able to fit in the palm of your hand. The name is derived from the French adjective, biscornu, meaning skewed, quirky or irregular. 

One of the ongoing challenges for pin loom weavers is to figure out new and interesting things to do with our favorite loom. Caroline has kindly offered to share her experience making a Biscornu Woolie Dryer Ball.  

She explained, "I love exploring , designing within the constraints or challenges of a craft. I'm sending you a sample of dryer ball infused with lavender, stuffed with wool fleece. Composed of 2 pinned loom squares, top one placed diagonally over the bottom one so that when stitched, the corners meet at the half point of other square." So instead of a boring old stuffed square, we have this very clever eight sided biscornu.  Caroline notes, "it was chained stitch embroidered before being stitched together and stuffed with wool."  Stitching was added through the middle to pull the top and bottom into the tuffet shape. 

I love this creative use to help laundry go a little greener. But I can also see a bunch of embellished biscornu pincushions and ornaments in my future!  As Caroline noted, "play with these patterns... see what you come up with.  

A summer project for a winter blanket

I was cleaning out a storage area-- something I do every decade whether it needs it or not-- and found a number of old projects.

Some of these have been featured before, some not. They are all made with pin looms, two of them using square and triangle style looms. You'll notice that a couple of the blankets spotlight a house medallion. I have always liked old fashioned brownstones and was delighted to discover that I could recreate the look of brick by using three layers of mahogany yarn woven with one layer of tan.

This second blanket never quite took off. It was a little too small and after beginning a verse around the outside, I decided that I didn't like it enough to finish it, but didn't want to mess it up by removing the letters I had inserted. This is probably one of the better and more finished of my unfinished projects.

Anyhow, the point of this post is that if you have plans for a blanket for this winter, you need to consider starting NOW. 

Pin loom blankets are different than knit or crochet. They start as a bunch of small squares and rectangles, each woven independently.


This is the perfect time to start thinking about your own winter blanket. What about drafting out a simplified picture of your own favorite house as the focal point and adding a couple borders of your favorite colors?

Even if you don't want to sweat over house details in the middle of summer, you can weave up the border blocks while sitting in the back yard.

Or start by picking out some soft yarn that is going to keep you cozy this winter and weave a few squares while you're at the pool.

Wherever you start, you're going to end up with a great blanket this winter in seemingly no time because so much of it was accomplished over lazy summer days. 

  Hope you have a great 4th of July! 

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

2014 Utimate winners!

Below are the two final pin loom winners for 2014.  But this isn't the end. Stay tuned for new features and giveaways in 2015.  Season's Greetings to all and a Very Happy New Year!

Congratulations to all of 2014's pin loom winners!

Dorothy R., Polkville, NC 

December winner of the ultimate set of two brand new Weavette Looms, a 2"x4" size and a 4"x 6" loom. Each loom is packaged in its own box with directions and 2 needles. "I weave on any kind of hand held loom so I more or less collect them!!! I have always wanted to try the pin looms so I'm excited. All I need is the book and I'll be ready." 

 

 

Karen S., College Park, MD

 

November winner of the set of vintage wood base 2" and 4" Weave-it Looms with needles and instructions. "I'm a copy editor and freelance writer. I got interested in pin loom weaving because it reminded me of the potholder loop weaving I did when I was a child (didn't everyone?). I like small, portable projects that I can finish in a day or less and pin looms are ideal for carrying around."

 

 

Weaving with weird stuff

I love the idea that almost anything is weavable on a pin loom. Here are two of my most recent experiments.

We're coming up on the holidays and I have been looking at the multitude of spun and woven fibers intended for scarves with the intention of making some pretty little bags for the holidays. I think they would be great as part of a gift or as the basis for a holiday purse.

I found this particular fiber in a "Please get this out of our store" bin. It is flat and ribbon-like with a generous amount of gold colored fiber woven through.

Here are the specifics:
Red Heart Boutique Sashay Metallic
Fiber Content:     66% Acrylic, 23% Polyester, 11% Metallic
Skein Weight:     3.5 oz (100 g)
Yardage:     30 yd (27 m)

So the question becomes, can you weave with it on a pin loom?  The sample you see to the left was woven with two layers of the gold fiber and two layers of a wool sock weight yarn. I found that it was best to roll the fiber against my leg just before laying each 4" piece between the pins in order to turn it into a rounder package. I don't think it makes any difference to the outcome, but that made it easier to wind on.

I always wind on the difficult fiber first and weave through with something easy to handle.  As you can see this produces a wider shiny stripe of gold and with a smaller stripe of white. I think that it would be possible, but not easy, to wind on three layers of gold and then just weave through with the lighter wool yarn.  I think it would be possible to wind and weave all four layers in the gold fiber but the effort, for me, would not be worth the tremendous amount of difficulty.

Second strange fiber-

As I may previously mentioned, I am fond of shopping at thrift shops because the items are so interesting.  They represent a cross section of American passions over the past thirty or forty years.

I don't know that I can call this particular item a passion, perhaps more an infatuation, a reflection of an earlier age that introduced the slogan "Better Living Through Chemistry". 

From that earlier time I found one skein of a very weird yarn.


This is Phentex, a knitting yarn made of 100% polypropylene. It is reported to be:
stain resistant
machine washable and dryable
will not stretch or shrink
keeps the shape you knit in
non-fading fast colors
long wearing and
non-allergenic

It looks as though it is made from exactly the same stuff as pantyhose. I did a search online and found another person who had discovered a skein of this stuff, but it was white rather than brown. A newer version of this yarn is listed as "slipper and craft yarn" which makes sense because it is very hard to the touch and might work well for knitted slipper soles.

Comments in Ravelry notes the hard, scratchy feel of anything that is made out of this yarn, noting that it is extreeeemly durable, seemingly impervious to wear. There are 40 year old slippers still out there that were made from it. Of course, that may have as much to do with the fact that the slippers were so uncomfortable that they never had a chance to wear out.

There is no twist to it, so it splits very easily-- not quite such a problem for me as for a knitter, but still difficult to work with. The greater difficulty for me was that the yarn was a little too thick to comfortable weave on my 4" pin loom. I finally wove two squares on a Weave-it 5" rug loom which I crocheted together to make what appears to be an impermeable pot scrubber-- which is shown above.

Have you run into some strange fiber that has offered an unexpected gift? What unknown or underestimated fiber is out there, just waiting to share its gifts?  Please share your experience. 

My intention, metaphorically, is to spin flax into gold, to show each fiber in its best light.

Come join the conversation

...Lola Colleen Watson has built a meeting place for all of us.  

A number of weavers have mentioned that they wish they had somewhere to talk and share about pin loom weaving.  Lola Colleen Watson heard the call and has established the Pin Loom Weaving Support Group on Facebook.

      I was an avid knitter before I had a baby and found out about the zoom
      loom brand of pin loom from a knitting designer I follow on instagram. It's
      easier for me to sit and do one of these at a time rather than a whole
      knitting project. After my baby was born I also got really into woven wraps
      and am fascinated by this new world of fiber arts. I think pin looms are a
      great low cost way to get a taste for weaving.

If you have thoughts or questions that you would really like to share with another pin loomer, this is the place to go.  Tell Lola I said "hi" and thank her from me for taking the time to give us all a place to talk. 

Check out the Facebook Pin Loom Weaving Support Group 

6" Pin Loom Correction

A reader/weaver/loom maker wrote to ask me about the pattern for the 6" pin loom that is available in the book Pin Loom Weaving. She was having problems making the pattern of pins work. I went back to the book and checked the pattern and found that it was wrong, I had managed to insert too many pins on two of the sides. Just enough to make it goof up, not enough apparently for me to notice that I had gotten it wrong.

I want to apologize to anyone who has struggled to make the loom with the incorrect pattern. I feel terrible to have sent out something that wasn't right. There is now a corrected pattern on the page titled: New 6" Pin Loom Template. This will allow you to download a PDF of the correct 6"x6" template.

Please note:  In order to make certain that the pattern prints to the correct size, you need to click the download button and print it through Adobe. If you print it directly from the shared file, it may come out an inaccurate size. When you print it, make sure that you hit the radio button that says: Print at actual size. Otherwise it will print too small and you'll have reason to get upset all over again-- at least that's what I did.

Again, my apologies for this error. Please feel free to download the updated 6" loom pattern.
Meg Stump

We have a winner!

Wendell W. of Kennesaw, GA is the August winner.

I have to say, I am close to astounded that I won the vintage pin loom!!  I could count on less than one hand , I think,  the number of things I have won on my 75 years.

I'm pretty sure it was while living in the Dallas TX area in the mid 70's that I purchased my first pin loom - a Weave-It.  (At that time I was becoming involved in rigid heddle and later 4 shaft weaving.) Since then I have acquired a few others -- new, used, wood, plastic.  Pin weaving is such a fulfilling activity.  Easy to do and keep at hand or travel with and not particular about the yarn it will accommodate.  I have woven many hundreds of squares and other shapes on 2", 4" and rectangular looms.

Are you signed up to win the Pin Loom Giveaways coming up at the end of each month? 

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 Pinpressions

A Pinpression is a plastic version of the metal pin art toys. It sells at Wal-Mart for about $5.00. I first came across the pinpression when I was looking for stocking stuffers. Unfortunately, it did not work as well as the type with metal pins, but that turned out to be for the best.


Because the Pinpression that I had bought didn't work very well, I thought about throwing it away. Then I realized what I was looking at. The toy is made of two plastic boards that are perforated with rows of holes as well as a clear plastic board on top.  It is held together with plastic bolts and acorn nuts.

It dawned on me that if I took out all the plastic pins, I could turn this item into a pin loom.  Here is how it has worked out so far:

As much as I would have liked to just keep the original hardware, it turned out to be easier to get 1" x 1/4" cap screws with matching nuts to secure the boards together. Keep in mind that you want to get the same threading on both parts, they come in 20 and 28- either will work, just make certain that they match.

I used 1 1/4" cedar shingle nails as weaving pins. I took the boards with me to a hardware store and simply tried different nails until I found some that would go through the holes without being too tight or too loose.


These nails turned out to have a rounded rather than very sharp tip, which is helpful. My only regret was that in order to get the 40 or so than I needed, I had to purchase 370. If possible, look for a source that lets you purchase less of them.

My goal was to be able to produce a small square or rectangle that would match my Weavette and Zoom Loom sett and offer slightly different dimensions to fill in an occasional need for an off size weavie. I haven't been able to do that quite yet although its close.

This little loom could work quite well on its own-- without comparing it to a standard loom. This has been a fun loom to experiment with because of the reasonably low initial investment and the potential to weave a number of different squares.

 

The next two pictures show the same weaving on and off the loom. The square measures 2 1/4" x 2 1/4". You can see the pin placement from the back in the picture above that shows the loom back and the cedar shingle nails.

The four weavings on the left in the picture below were all created on this pin loom. In comparison, the grey square on the right was woven on a 2" Weave-it.

Despite some frustration regarding the learning curve, I found that it was possible to complete a pin loom with a finished selvedge all the way around.  If you have any questions about this process, leave a comment and I will try to fill in the details.   Happy weaving!