I am often asked how to care for woven wall hangings and tapestries.
The answer is quite simple.
I am often asked how to care for woven wall hangings and tapestries.
The answer is quite simple.
I wrote and designed and wrote and designed sooooooooooooo many patterns and projects for the Potholder Loom Weaving book that the book became too big, and my editor and I had to make some hard decisions. Even so, the book is a lot thicker than the publisher had originally intended, so many thanks to Stackpole Books and especially to my wonderful editor, Candi Derr, for going to bat for the book and letting it grow bigger than it was originally intended.
We pulled this design from the book and now I am offering it to you as a gift.
If you want to make the blanket larger, use a 27 peg (Pro size) 9 inch loom instead of the Traditional 18 peg size potholder loom.

POTHOLDER LOOM GEOMETRIC BLANKET by Noreen Crone-Findlay (copyright)
The Geometric blanket is a cozy wrap to keep you warm no matter what season. The teddy bears and their friends are having a lovely picnic on the Geometric blanket. Won’t you join them?
NOTES: Feel free to change colors and yarns. The blanket in the photos was woven with a single strand of bulky yarn. If you choose to work with thinner yarns, you will need to purchase (or spin) twice as much yarn and use 2 or more strands held together as if they are a single strand.
The twill pattern is on page 59 of Potholder Loom Weaving. The brown and green butterflies in the original blanket didn’t work well, so use the twill pattern or you choice of alternates instead.
FINISHED MEASUREMENTS: 60 inches/150 cm square.
If you would like a larger blanket, then use the large size (27 pegs or nails per side) potholder loom, following the chart and weaving the same number of squares and rectangles. You will need to purchase at least 50% more yarn.
WPI of yarn: 6 wraps per inch
EQUIPMENT AND TOOLS: Potholder loom- 6 inch size (18 pegs or nails per side), Optional: Small size (9 pegs or nails per side) potholder loom; weaving hook; chopstick or knitting needle for shed stick; crochet hook; scissors; tapestry or craft needle.
YARN: Lion Brand Wool-Ease Tonal; Bulky #5 weight yarn; 80% acrylic/ 20% wool; 124 yd/ 113 m; 4 oz/113 gm; 1 strand of yarn is used as warp and weft. 3 balls of each of the following colors: #112 Raspberry; #153 Night Sky; #123 Sand; #126 Coffee; 4 balls of #194 Lime.
INSTRUCTIONS:
WEAVE:
20 squares in #194 Lime Here’s a link that will show you how to weave with yarn on the potholder loom: LINK
16 squares warped with #194 Lime and woven with #126 Coffee
16 squares in #112 Raspberry
1 square in #153 Night Sky
12 squares in #126 Coffee
36 rectangles, warped vertically over 9 pegs or nails, and woven horizontally over 18 pegs or nails in #153 Night Sky, woven using Rectangle technique on https://youtu.be/K2X4nLRBBNs
16 squares in #123 Sand
4 small squares in #194 Lime, woven using instructions for how to weave small squares (9 pegs or nails by 9 pegs or nails) on p.10 of the Potholder Loom Weaving book or instructions that came with the small size potholder loom.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
Stitch all the squares and rectangles together, following the chart .
Start at the middle and work out.


Wheee… it was so exciting to hold the book in my hands!
The Potholder Loom Weaving Book can be ordered worldwide on internet book seller sites as well as from your favorite local bookshop. Happy Weaving!

Here is a short video that shows some of the projects designed to be woven for home decor with potholder looms.
The Potholder Loom Weaving Book can be ordered worldwide on internet book seller sites as well as from your favorite local bookshop. Happy Weaving!
Knitting, crocheting and weaving Comfort/Compassion/Kindness/Pocket/Prayer Bears is really important to me.
I have crocheted, knitted and woven thousands of them over the last 20 or so years, and have given them all away.
I designed my first Comfort Bear in response to 9/11 in the hopes of soothing frightened, grieving hearts.
The first version was a crocheted Comfort bear, and was the front page of the Craft Yarn Council of America website for a couple of years. The link is still there: LINK
And, here’s the link to the Crocheted Comfort Bear that I tweaked slightly for my blog: LINK
A few years ago, I designed a knitted Comfort/Blessing Bear that has a ‘hugging’ single loop for the arms so it can hug you back: LINK
I’ve also designed a very simple little knitted Pocket Bear with Stitched Arms: Here’s the Link to the video:
https://tottietalkscrafts.com/2018/12/25/easy-to-knit-comfort-or-pocket-teddy-bears/
In memory of my beloved son in law, Clancy, who died of a Covid caused heart catastrophe, I designed this bear: LINK

The most recent Crocheted member of the Comfort/Kindness/Compassion/Blessing/Prayer bear family is a crocheted Panda:
Note that you don’t have to make it as a Panda…. crochet it in blue yarn to make a Blue Bear of Happiness, or in more traditional brown yarn…..

Another kind of Blessing Bear or Compassion bear is to make them for people who are grieving the death of someone they loved.
Use garments that the person used to wear and either cut the garment into fabric strips and knit, crochet or weave a Memory Bear, or unravel one of the person’s sweaters and knit, crochet or weave a Blessing/Memory Bear with that.
Here are some links for Memory Bears: LINK and LINK
I did mention that I have woven Comfort/Blessing bears didn’t I?
One of my favorite projects in my new Potholder Loom Weaving book is a Blessing Bear woven on the potholder loom:
Here it is, peeking out of a little pocket on one of the baskets that is in the book:

Here’s a link to order it online, but you can also order it from your local bookstore worldwide: LINK


I love baskets. I love weaving them and I love using them.
These soft baskets hold a lot of stuff, and fit great on shelves and into cube shelving.
When they are empty, they are easy to store, because they fold flat. You can fill a soft woven basket with other soft woven baskets until they are needed.
I designed a whole bunch of them for my new Potholder Loom Weaving book.
The baskets are a compendium of a slew of techniques (some of which I figured out for the book) that can also be used in all kinds of other ways- the sky’s the limit on the creative possibilities!
By the way, the baskets work great as market bags or project bags.
Here’s the video:
The Potholder Loom Weaving book is available now online for pre-ordering and will be available in stores and online worldwide in January of 2020.

Here’s another sneak peek into my new Potholder loom book:

Scarves, stoles, shawls…. all to weave on potholder looms!
For now, the book can be pre-ordered online and then in January 2020, it will be in bookstores worldwide.
Here’s a little video that shows scarves, stoles and shawls from the book:
Happy Weaving!

I was asked by someone yesterday what loom to buy to learn how to weave wall hangings.
What a great question! Why? Because I designed lots of wall hangings for my new book: Potholder Loom Weaving

The book is available for pre-ordering from all the online booksellers and will be available in bookstores in early 2020. Here’s a link: L I N K
And here are links to order potholder looms:
And, here is a video showing a sneak peek at the Wall Hangings in the book:
For the last couple of years, I have been working 24/7 on 2 new books as well as a solo show of my mixed media wovenworks.
I am so delighted that both books will be released in 2020 in bookstores worldwide.

My publisher, Stackpole Books/Rowman/Littlefield has made ‘Potholder Loom Weaving’ available online worldwide for pre-ordering.
It will be on bookshelves worldwide in January of 2020. 😀
It’s a BIG book! It is 264 pages of tons and tons and tons of techniques and projects and I am thrilled to bits with it!
You can pre-order the paperback version of it now from all the online book sellers, and here’s a link to the Book Depository, who ships worldwide for free: LINK
The electronic versions of the book will be available in January- I don’t think it can be pre-ordered for Kindle etc yet.
The last couple of years have been really intense as I have been working night and day on two new books as well as new tapestries and woven works.
One of the books is now up online available for pre-order (I’ll post links asap) and one of the series of tapestries is now in the gallery (Harcourt House Gallery in Edmonton), awaiting the opening on October 18.

This piece is from my ‘Follow the Thread’ series of mixed media weavings:” Terpsichore- Carmen’s Birds”.
Terpsichore is the muse of the dance.
This piece is definitely influenced by my husband, Jim Findlay‘s commitment to playing flamenco.
I was having trouble resolving the piece, because I knew that she needed something to lift her to completion.
Then, my friend, Carma, who sings and dances with Jim and Susan and Barb in Corazone del Flamenco gave me a beautiful little black necklace with tiny birds, and Voila! Done! The birds were exactly what Terpsichore was needing (demanding!)

She’s at the #HarcourtHouseGallery in Edmonton until November 23.
I’ll post more pics of pieces from ‘Follow the Thread’ soon.
#YEG #YEGflamenco #YEGart #YEGweaving #YEGtapestry