The Difference Between Potholder looms and triangle looms
On October 11, 2014, I checked how my 30 Ways to Weave a Potholder was looking on Amazon. I found one review. While I was gad to see that someone had bothered to comment on it, I was irked that, despite clearly stating in the description that the book was written for the potholder loom, the reviewer bought the book wanting to know how to triangle-weave on a Hazel Rose loom. This reviewer gave it two stars because it didn't discuss a technique that the loom was unsuitable for.
For those of you who haven't heard of triangle weaving or Hazel Rose, triangle weaving made a big splash in the 1990's. The method uses a single, continuous strand that is woven as it goes on to the loom (without any warping prior to weaving). Hazel Rose is one of the biggest, if not the biggest name in triangle looms.
Shortly after the triangle loom became popular, someone realized that a square was essentially two triangles joined by their hypotenuses. So while the shape is "square," the loom still counts as "triangle weaving" (It's also called "bias weaving," because the grain ends up at a bias to the right angle.)
Now, how are people connecting triangle looms with potholder looms? Well, it's because one of the models Hazel
Rose makes is a seven-inch square. A standard potholder loom is a seven-inch square. So people get to thinking a potholder loom is a cheap Hazel Rose square. I used to put together potholder loom kits on eBay, and I had one buyer (she bought three) tell me that she wanted to try triangle weaving, fortunately before I shipped them. (I ended up sending her one of my "dual-purpose" looms, which does have teeth all the way into the corner and can be used for triangle weaving.) What they forget is, since finishing a weaving made with loopers takes up about a half an inch weft- and warp-wise, standard potholder looms do not have teeth within a half inch of the corners.
(Another difference is that the potholder loom has teeth set every two-thirds of an inch, while most triangle looms have their nails set every half inch on the legs.)
So if you tried to triangle weave on a potholder loom, you'd end up with this "X" of unwoven threads from corner to corner, looking something a knitter would think of as dropped stitches. Maybe you could weave a heavier yarn through them for a special effect. But at best, it' be a one-trick weave. More likely, someone who didn't understand the difference between a potholder loom and a Hazel Rose loom would blame the instructions, or the instructor, when in fact it's their fault for picking a loom that's unsuited for the method, and was never promoted for the use in the first place.
For those of you who haven't heard of triangle weaving or Hazel Rose, triangle weaving made a big splash in the 1990's. The method uses a single, continuous strand that is woven as it goes on to the loom (without any warping prior to weaving). Hazel Rose is one of the biggest, if not the biggest name in triangle looms.
Shortly after the triangle loom became popular, someone realized that a square was essentially two triangles joined by their hypotenuses. So while the shape is "square," the loom still counts as "triangle weaving" (It's also called "bias weaving," because the grain ends up at a bias to the right angle.)
Now, how are people connecting triangle looms with potholder looms? Well, it's because one of the models Hazel
Rose makes is a seven-inch square. A standard potholder loom is a seven-inch square. So people get to thinking a potholder loom is a cheap Hazel Rose square. I used to put together potholder loom kits on eBay, and I had one buyer (she bought three) tell me that she wanted to try triangle weaving, fortunately before I shipped them. (I ended up sending her one of my "dual-purpose" looms, which does have teeth all the way into the corner and can be used for triangle weaving.) What they forget is, since finishing a weaving made with loopers takes up about a half an inch weft- and warp-wise, standard potholder looms do not have teeth within a half inch of the corners.
(Another difference is that the potholder loom has teeth set every two-thirds of an inch, while most triangle looms have their nails set every half inch on the legs.)
So if you tried to triangle weave on a potholder loom, you'd end up with this "X" of unwoven threads from corner to corner, looking something a knitter would think of as dropped stitches. Maybe you could weave a heavier yarn through them for a special effect. But at best, it' be a one-trick weave. More likely, someone who didn't understand the difference between a potholder loom and a Hazel Rose loom would blame the instructions, or the instructor, when in fact it's their fault for picking a loom that's unsuited for the method, and was never promoted for the use in the first place.