Blog

Visiting Harrisville

We took a brief family vacation this week to see the eclipse, and on the way home we detoured through Harrisville, NH to visit the folks at Harrisville Designs, makers of the Friendly Loom potholder-weaving loops.

We had a lovely conversation with Nick, the managing director at HD, and Hope, their creative manager, as well as the team that runs the retail shop. It was great getting to talk to folks who are so deeply engaged in this field, and to express our appreciation for their work.

We look forward to visiting again in the future, and perhaps taking a tour of the production facilities.

[Postscript:] A few people asked about the shop, so I figured I’d add a note about it here. The retail store fills nearly the entire first floor of that building, and it’s spacious and bright.

Potholders are just one part of their business, so the loops are all over in one corner, while the rest is filled with various kinds of yarn for knitting, crochet, traditional weaving, and so forth. The staff is all super friendly, and they host various kinds of local crafter gatherings.

The product offerings and prices are all basically the same as what you’d find on their website, but seeing them in person was nice — if you find yourself in southern New Hampshire, it’s definitely worth the visit!

One of the original Cheshire Mills buildings, now home to Harrisville Designs.
The Friendly Loom potholder section of the store.
Obligatory selfie in front of the old mill.

Fret Knot

Continuing our series of shadow-weave knots, the next pattern is the fret, a pattern formed by two bands crossing within a loop. (Chart posted for 19 pegs.)

The simplicity and symmetry of this design are also reflected in the attractive reverse side. As with all shadow-weave, there are plenty of two-floats, along with just four triples on the back to produce the square boxes which draw up so nicely on the front.

Woven on a newly-purchased Chinese-made weaving frame, using red and white traditional loops from Friendly Loom.

Paired Key Tiles

Here’s another new weaving chart, adapted from a printed fabric pattern incorporating a square spiral / greek-key motif.

The design on the back is completely different, but also striking, with a bold rotational symmetry.

As with many of our new designs, in the course of weaving the first example Piglet identified a few places where floats could be tweaked to improve the results, and those improvements have been incorporated back into this 27-peg chart.

Traditional-Size Shift Twill Rainbow

Another four-four shift twill rainbow, in traditional size with FL brights as the warp and skillet in the weft.

I love the “spectral confetti” effect, and the false impression that it might be woven with multi-color loops. (The pro version is even more impressive.)

Given how much this weave shrinks up when taken off the loom, I suspect an industrious weaver could continue the pattern and pack in a couple more weft rows.

Charts available in pro and traditional size.

Savoy Knot

Next up in our series of shadow-weave knotwork designs is the Savoy Knot, also known as a figure-eight knot. (Chart posted for 19 pegs.)

Woven on a Cottage Looms 19-peg loom with FriendlyLoom traditional loops in white and seaglass.

As you would predict from a shadow-weave design with a scattering of over-two floats, this pulls up slightly more than a tabby design but less than a twill. (There are no floats longer than two loops.)

Recent Website Updates

Frequent visitors to our site may notice a few changes that rolled out over the last day or so.

The biggest of these updates is that the full list of charts has moved from the front page to a secondary page; this hopefully makes the front page a little less overwhelming to first-time visitors, who are now greeted with a bit more introductory text and navigation options.

Among those new navigation options are links to browse just one section of the chart listing at once; for folks who know they only want to work in plain-weave or are looking for a specific style of twill, this should make the search for charts slightly smoother. This section filter also appears as a pull-down menu on the chart listing.

A less obvious addition is a new option appearing at the top of the chart listing: a “Show Images” checkbox. Turning this on reorganizes the page to include thumbnail images of each chart, making it much easier to scan through the designs for one that catches your eye.

I hope these changes make our site more useful to readers, but if you run into any rough edges or have suggestions for how to further improve it, please let us know!

Fun with Half Basketweave

Okay, this is fun! Inspired by the background weave pattern on the “Outstanding in her field” potholder I wove this morning, I whipped up a sample with just that weave throughout. It’s a 1/2 basketweave, by which I mean over-2/under-2 across the row, then shift 2 columns to weave over-2/under-2 across the next row. (See photos on the loom, below.)

Love the “teeth” of the green & lime potholder, which uses a 1/1 alternating color sequence for both rows and columns.

The yellow & plum potholder is the exact same weave pattern using a threading pattern alternating colors 2/2 for columns and 1/1 for rows. (That will make more sense when you look at the on-loom photo, I promise!)

The outcome is distinctly ribbed and gently textured, but flat overall with no significant lumps. Very bendy, with little skew.

[Click for charts for Half Basketweave Stripes and Half Basketweave Combs]

Outstanding In Her Field

Here’s our newest chart: a distinctive shadow-weave design with a pleasantly-textured surface. After binding off, the center of this design pulls up to form a raised pad, surrounded by gentle ribs.

This is a traditional motif found in Slavic redwork embroidery, variously said to represent a field or the sun shining on it. Adapted from a hand-stitched example by Hanya Vladimirovna Polotskaya.

Three-Three Twill Solo Wave

Here’s a brand-new chart with an especially-plush weave: “Three-Three Twill Solo Wave.”

This is a variation of our “Three-Three Twill Zig Zags” chart, with the contrasting color restricted to a single stripe. There are charts for 28/27 pegs and for 19 pegs.

Note that this shrinks up even more than a straight 3/3 twill, and as a result of that, it’s super thick and soft. The example below is woven with pro-size FL/Harrisville loops, 28 in the warp and 27 in the weft, and after binding off it’s just 6.5″ x 7″.

There are some long over-five floats, but the fabric holds together well and there are no gaps in the weave.

Mascle Knot

The third in our series of knot designs is about at the limit of what you can pack into a traditional-size loom: “Mascle Knot,” with one strand making six loops and nine crossings. (Chart posted for 19 pegs.)

The example below is woven with cayenne and white loops — and we’d love to see it in other colors!

As with the other shadow-weave knots, the potholder draws up slightly more than a pure-tabby weave but not as much as a twill. The longest floats on the front side are over-two, while the back includes some threes.