Little Looms

I ADORE DUMPLINGS OF ALL SORTS— wontons, pierogi, gyoza, momos, ravioli, mandu—if it's dough wrapped around a delicious filling, I'm in. I love them so much, I decreed 2023 as the year I learn to make as many different types of dumplings as possible. While I enjoy eating them, cooking them scared me—they just seem so fiddly. That said, the only way to get over the fear of making dumplings was to do the work and make them. As it turns out? It was much easier than I thought. So far, I've made Szechuan-style wontons and potato and cheese pierogi. Both took a lot of time, but the work itself was surprisingly simple to the point of being relaxing—meditative, even. Stuff, seal, shape, repeat. As I was making the pierogi, which…

Loom Conversion Kit Ready to take a new step on your weaving path? Schacht has created the Cricket Quartet to help. This new kit transforms the 15-inch Cricket loom into a four-shaft loom with a 13½-inch weaving width. The Quartet parts are crafted from high-quality maple plywood and solid hard maple. The kit includes 300 Texsolv heddles and a reed with the dent size of your choice. schachtspindle.com Compact Inkle Loom Ashford has redesigned the Inklette loom, and its small size makes it easy to take anywhere. The loom is simple to assemble and can weave a band with a maximum 70-inch length and 2-inch width The loom comes with a shuttle; all you add is heddles, thread, and your creativity. ashford.co.nz Adjustable Pin Loom With so many pin looms available, how can you choose…

Deborah Jean Cohen Fort Smith, AR: Bàghban House, 2021. Paperback, $20.00, 185 pages. ISBN 9781736857625. I am not one to dismiss simple looms. As a lover of small looms, I realize that loom simplicity and the ability to create complex cloth have nothing to do with one another. Where there is a warp and a weft, there is a way. Even so, I found myself astounded at the designs in Deborah Jean Cohen's book, although not because they were produced on a simple loom. Rather, it was that they were produced on a simple loom using traditional potholder loops, a weaving medium not known for its versatility. In the Loop provides some level of how-to, but it does not aim to teach anyone how to weave on a potholder loom. Cohen does, however,…

Say the word math in a room full of creatives, and you could very well find yourself facing a chorus of protestations along the lines of “I don't do math,” “I'm not a numbers person,” or some variant thereof. Technically, what they are voicing is a discomfort with arithmetic (calculations of numbers) as opposed to math, which can be applied or pure, and includes algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry, statistics, and probability. To this author, who barely passed calculus, terms such as sine, cosine, symbols, integers, proofs, coefficients, theorems, and algorithms were almost enough to put me off math for life. But math provides a mechanism to understand relationships and solve problems-the very things we do every time we sit at our looms. In fact, we probably already use math as a…

One of my favorite ways to experience tapestry weaving is through what I call sketch tapestry. I live in the western United States, where I love to hike and backpack, often taking a sketchbook, spindle, and little loom with me. A loom … outside? Absolutely! Think, plein air-but with yarn. Sketch tapestry involves spending unstructured time outside or in an inspiring environment, making notes about what I see and then weaving a response to the experience in a small tapestry. This practice of absorbing a place and responding to it through weaving provides a powerful reminder to engage deeply with my environment-so much so that I now teach workshops on sketch tapestry. WHAT DO I MEAN BY SKETCH TAPESTRY? Tapestry weaving is often taught with lots of rules and techniques. While these…

I sometimes defy the sensible rules laid out in this publication and all the other ones on natural dyeing that you might have read. I occasionally dye things in my kitchen in my daily pots and pans with no rubber gloves or dust masks or precision scales. In other words, I sometimes dye things as if I were making soup. I have one rock-solid rule I never break when following this renegade path, though: I don't use anything I wouldn't put in my mouth or feed to my family. I thought it would be fun to dye some jersey loops and make myself some new hot pads, using only things I could find in my kitchen. Here's what I found: • Green tea = tannin • Food-grade pickling alum = mordant (Well, I…