Woven Potholder Fiasco

 So we need some new potholders that are bigger and thicker than the ones we have, which are old and in bad shape, but they are expensive, so I decided to make some. I have a regular potholder loom, but the potholders are small. I didn't want to sew or crochet any, so I remembered my Martha Stewart loom, which can be arranged in many shapes and sizes, and arranged it into a ten by ten loom. I thought I would just order cotton loops for it, but the loops for a ten inch loom are also expensive.

I have some leftover cotton yarn, so I thought I would try weaving a trial potholder with it. I couldn't find the wire hook to pull the yarn through, so I used a long crochet hook. I assembled the loom to make an eight by eight inch finished potholder and pushed all the little plastic pegs into the holes and set about wrapping the yarn around them.

It's been several years since I did any weaving, so I am really rusty. Nevertheless I wrapped the yarn around each post twice, for thickness, to make the warp. It was aggravating trying to keep the yarn straight and somewhere along the line some got twisted, but I thought it's only a trial run, so I proceeded to do the weft using only one strand of yarn. Doing the weft was really a pain in the butt. 

I got off to a bad start within the first two or three lines. Of course, I didn't notice until a few lines later, but I kept going even though the lines were one peg off across. The crochet hook was a bit big around to get between the pegs, and I had to twist it some, which loosened some of the pegs and caused them to fall out, turning the yarn loose. I had to drag the yarn back and re-peg it. Also, the hook was very shallow, so after I worked it over and under the warp and hooked the yarn strand to pull it across to the other side, it would slide off the hook or get tangled, and I had to re-do it. This happened several times. The further I went the tighter and harder it got to weave. By the end, I could barely get the hook through, let alone pull yarn back with it. I was so happy to weave the last line, even though it's not straight, and I have several missed stitches. A couple of times I ran out of yarn strands and had to tie more on.

Below is what it looked like before I took it off the loom, very tightly woven. I could already tell it wasn't thick enough.

I used a slip knot to take the potholder off the loom. It was so tight around the pegs that I had to take part of them out to get the stitches off to finish. Only after I finished did I notice that a couple of the stitches had dropped that I failed to get hooked, so I had to tie them up with a short piece of yarn.

Anyway, I got it off, skipped stitches, dropped stitches, loose threads, knots, crooked lines and all. It's messy looking, but hubby tried it out. He loves the bigger size, but informed me that I need to make another one to sew onto this one to make it thick enough.

I said, "No way!" I told him I would show him how and he could make one, but he doesn't want to, so this is how it'll stay.

This one is too light in color and flimsy for us anyway. We are messy in the kitchen and they get stained and sometimes scorched.

So, I'm either going to have to buy some thick cotton rug yarn or give in and pay the price for the thick cotton loops and maybe a new bigger potholder loom with permanent pegs for looping. 

And next time, if I use yarn, I'll try to remember not to make the warp so tight that it's a struggle to get the weft through it! I made a mess, but I was reminded of how I should do it if I do try weaving another one.

You learn, or are reminded of, something new or forgotten every day if you pay attention! Keep on keeping on!