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Potholder Weave Dimension Reference

I put together a little chart to help visualize the range of sizes produced by different weaving patterns.

The differences are striking: the long-float twills can be as small as 60% of the area of a plain-weave potholder (20% smaller in both height and width), but they make up for that by being up to twice as thick — or even more than that in the case of ribbed and waffled weaves.

This is definitely not an authoritative scientific survey — I just grabbed a ruler and took some rough measurements from a mix of recently-made samples fresh off the loom and well-worn ones that have been hanging in our kitchen for years.

There’s a lot of variation; in places where you see little black bars sticking out of the right edge, those show a range of smaller and larger measurements I took from different examples. There are multiple factors at play, but I suspect the biggest driver is the variation in loops — sometimes you’ll get a bag of loops that are stretchier or tighter than usual, and that impacts the size of the finished product.

These measurements are all from potholders woven with Harrisville (“Friendly Loom”) cotton loops, with no skipped pegs — if you’re using wool or poly loops, I’d expect the results to be different.

Searchable Index

The front page of this site, which contains a listing of all of our published charts, now includes a simple search feature that makes it easier to locate specific charts.

When you visit the home page of potholders.piglet.org, you’ll see a gray field near the top prompting you to “type to search.”

As you type into that field, the list of charts on the page will be filtered to only show matching entries. For example, if you type in “basket” the page will show only basketweave patterns.

Searching only works on the visible titles, so this will not find descriptive commentary that may appear in the comments area on an individual chart.

You can filter for charts by size, so if you type in “19” you’ll see only patterns which include a 19-peg chart.

Search Links

You can also include search terms in links, so if you send someone a link to https://potholders.piglet.org/?nine they will see a listing of just the nine-block charts.

This allows linking to individual charts such as https://potholders.piglet.org/?hallstat, or just the PDF files with https://potholders.piglet.org/?pdf.

Regular Expressions

The search feature uses your browser’s regular-expression engine, so you can search for “17|19” to find patterns with either a 17-peg chart or a 19-peg chart.

These can be included in links, so https://potholders.piglet.org/?waffle|padded will lead people to a page displaying patterns which contain either “waffle” or “padded.”

 

Hands-On Workshop

Hello NYC-adjacent potholder folks! You are invited to join Piglet and me for a free hands-on workshop we’re running for our historical re-creation group in the evening of Thursday, March 16.

We’ll be talking about some of the weaving structures found in pre-modern fabrics, including pieces of cloth that survived from 500, 1500, or 2500 years ago, that were woven in many variations of tabby and twill. We’ll use examples from our stash of potholders to demonstrate the differences, then hand out looms and loops and let people weave up their own potholders using those same styles.

If you live in the NYC area, and have any interest in learning about handcrafts from more than 400 years ago, bring a loom and some loops and join us!

The photograph below shows some of the samples to be discussed. Top Row: 3/1 ribbed twill; 2/1 twill; 3/1 broken twill. Center: 2/2 houndstooth twill; 2/2 broken chevron twill; 2/2 chevron twill; 2/2 diamond twill. Bottom: plain weave with doubled warp; gauze; 3/3 twill.

Indented Bendlets

Piglet worked a 19-peg version of our “Indented Bendlets” pattern, and while she was doing so identified a few places where the 27-peg chart included some needlessly-long floats. The corrected charts have been posted to our website and are attached below.

She describes the resulting potholder as “thick, but not too plush,” and “flexible but not floppy.” She also says it is “noticeably flat and even. Very stable. This stability is tied to the way the weaving pattern is established along the major diagonals.”

I’m really happy with how this works up, and the subtle difference in plushness between the narrow and wide stripes that develops when you take it off the loom.

This is another one of those designs that looks different while it’s on the loom — the little spots of color inside each of the contrasting boxes pulls down when you bind off, leaving a solid-color diagonal stripe.

Charts attached and on our home page as usual.

December Edition

The December edition of our potholder design collection has been posted as a downloadable PDF. It contains 249 designs, many at multiple sizes, for a total of 360 charts. All of the individual charts are also available as single images on our website’s home page.

A total of 109 designs have been added since October, of which 40 are available in multiple sizes. The new charts are highlighted in the table of contents, both online and in the printable document. If you already have the earlier edition, you can download just the new charts as a separate PDF.

Many of those are described in recent posts by Piglet here and on Facebook, including photos and commentary on the resulting potholders.

Swapping A Loop

Sometimes, in the middle of weaving, you realize that you’ve used the wrong color of loop — here’s a simple way to make it a bit easier to  swap in a different one.

When I put in my first row, I accidentally used a white loop when it should have been yellow. I only noticed after putting in the rows above and below. Working middle rows is trickier when they are forced atop each other for the 19-peg pattern. So I looped my replacement yellow into the white loop that was there, and threaded it through in its place. Best to work it through one crossing at a time, I find, because the knot is lumpy. Slower, but so much easier on a complicated pattern than taking it out and starting from scratch.

Blocks and Crosses

Some things come off the loom and they are so perfect you can’t stand it. This is one of those things. What a delight!

The pattern is unexpected from the chart. Rotational symmetric floats form boxes that draw up on themselves. The front has four interlocking knots; the rear four connected boxes. The knots and boxes stack atop each other, so the fabric is extra thick at those four points. The result is soft and thick, yet still drapey and flexible. A marvelous pattern!

Tensioned on the loom, you see the exploded version of the front knots.

On the front, you can see 4 interlocking knots, like textile frogs.

Similarly, on the rear view, the boxes have drawn up to obscure 4 white dots you see on the chart preview (upper right corner).

The thickness is more apparent in the hanging view, here of the boxes on the back.

And here on the front view, the knots stand out from the fabric physically as well as visually. The boxes on the back line up, so the result is not distorted or wavy.

Hallstatt 74

Inspired by a 2,700 year old (late Iron Age) textile fragment from a salt mine in Hallstatt, Austria, we have a lovely 2/2 twill with 3 direction changes, generating a regular fabric with 3-floats spread among the columns. The outcome is flexible and drapey, with very little bias, so it does not skew. In honor of the Iron Age culture, I chose flax for the background, and willow (which could be produced by woad overdyed with weld.)

I happened to have 7 loops in an older dye lot of willow. This is a perfect place to use them. The stripes are separated enough that the contrast is not obvious. The pattern change seems deliberate. They will fade in use to be closer in color. And the variation honors natural dying (as you might expect, overdying woad with weld can produce *many* shades).

Hallstatt, an elegant two over two twill that changes direction in three places to produce, in combination with the threading pattern, two rows of chevrons in the same direction.

Hallstatt back, identical.

Changing direction in the 2/2 twill rows creates 3-floats in the columns. Don’t panic when you see loose columns at the points! Front view…

…and rear view, showing the 3-floats on the back columns. The adjacent rows will tie those down.

With the 5 center rows in place, all columns are locked down.

Our color pattern begins, with no change in the weaving pattern.

Here we have reached the mid-point of the chevrons, and are about to reverse our direction.

Shifting our 2/2 twill into reverse, we have again generated 3-floats in our columns, which we will lock down on adjacent rows…

Here are the full stripes in place. From here we continue in the same direction we were going, finishing out the background color.

Here is the chart for this iteration. It is doable in a traditional version, with some design modification. I would not recommend plucking a subset of rows and columns directly from this 27-peg chart.

 

Padded Basketweave

Let’s get ready to weeeeeeeeeave!!!! Today’s new fabric is a solid winner, with lots of color work potential. Inspired by the recent 2-float twill tumbling boxes, this pattern combines 3-floats over tabby squishy boxes, that create an amazing 3-layer fabric, thick, flat and bendy, with little bias. It draws up very small and evenly. The surface is flat, making this great for coasters and trivets. It would be great on cast iron, as it is thick yet not stiff.

I wove the first version in lavender and hydrangea alternating boxes. The color potential became clear after taking it off the loom, when the tabby-like section formed by the box centers was covered by the floats on the surface, forming a basketweave illusion.

For the second version, I highlighted the color-hiding and surface display by making a stairstep of alternating daffodil and tigerlily on the surface, with hidden white centers. It uses the same weaving pattern, with a different color threading.