This year, the TURTLEs decided to participate in Long Thread Media’s Holiday Guide. 17 companies are coming together in a showcase of inspiration with fiber related gifts for your loved ones … or yourself. Get inspired with giving ideas, and at the same time you can sign up to win.
Hop over to the holiday guide, indulge exploring all the options, and sign up to win prizes! The giveaway ends on November 7th, which means if you don’t win you can still order your favorite picks in time for the holidays.
The interview resulted in two amazing opportunities for me to talk about pin-loom weaving and how I use this yarn craft to create quilt-inspired projects:
Saturday, October 11, 2025 is the official “I Love Yarn” day, and I cannot thing of a better way to celebrate than to invite you to weave a little something with yarn.
I will be hosting a Make-and-Take event at the brand-new Sit & Stitch Lounge. Come and sit down and I’ll teach you how to weave a hexagon (using the sample looms at the table), and you will take home a little bag charm. I have Make-and-Take kits prepared to make a little pumpkin charm as pictured (free of charge, while supplies last). I will also have a variety of yarns available for you to sample, or feel free to bring your own!
Over the next few days, I will blog about some of the projects that I’ve made to celebrate the Festival, including the table topper that was inspired by this year’s Festival logo.
I invite you to subscribe to this blog so that you don’t miss any of those stories!
As a weaver, at some point during your weaving journey you most likely have encountered color gamps, the systematic use of color combinations within a project.
It has been a great privilege for me to write about special aspects of color gamp weaving on pin looms for the Little Looms magazine, and you can read about it in the new Little Looms Summer 2025 issue that has been released today.
For the Weave Together 2025 retreat, I designed a sample project that allows pin-loom weavers to explore color-gamp weaving in a practical project: A Color Gamp Bandana.
For the gamp, I combined these colors with themselves (see diagonal) and then with each other, and arranged them in a gamp with slanted columns (read about that construction in the Little Looms article).
Using seven colors and the TinyTURTLEloom makes a project large enough for a bandana that can be worn with a bandana clasp clip or ring (I used a faux leather clip).
If you would like to make a larger bandana, consider adding more colors or use the same colors on a larger loom!
While this project concludes our Weave Together 2025 miniseries I hope that you enjoyed it and will stick around, because there’s always more … alligator Mardy is right around the corner, and I saw a bunny hopping across the lawn recently, and then there is a long list of pin-loom tips and tricks that want to be shared …
Simply sign up to the turtleloom blog to be notified so that you don’t miss anything:
Take a moment and share what you thought about this miniseries in the comments below!
Weave Together 2025 location: York, Pennsylvania. Theme: Traveling. Retreat focus: Weaving immersion, yarn, good food.
There is no escape … this is inspiration for an outdoor brunch with a country table setting! I grabbed some looms, yarn from the Marketplace, and designed a Countryside Brunch Table Topper, which is our third Weave Together 2025 project.
The Yarns
Lofty Fiber’s LoftyCotton Pillow Soft yarn is a beautiful thick/thin cotton that weaves up great on our F – fine sett looms, but for this project I used it double-stranded on the R – regular sett which allowed me to blend colors.
I also discovered Circulo Natural Multicolor 4/6 at Lofty Fiber, a variegated thick cotton that weaves up into a sturdy fabric on the R – regular sett looms.
Looms and Instructions
To make the project, weave: – 6 jewel shapes on the Original Jewel Loom, R, in Circulo Natural, I used multicolor 9392 – 12 hexagon shapes on the Original TURTLE Loom™, R, holding two strands of Pillow Soft together (I used colors Gold and Cayenne)
Joining pieces that are not organized in rows and columns is not always easy (ask any quilter), so here are a few “best practices” tips that you may find helpful when assembling your table topper:
To assemble the center circle, layout the jewels with the end tails pointing together and the start tails pointing into the same direction, for example “all to the right”.
Join the jewel pieces along the long sides first. Secure the first stitch (splice the yarn tail with the first stitch as shown), then whip stitch along the side, skipping about every fourth stitch.
Before joining the last two sides, use the following method to make a nice center … no ugly hole, and the jewel shapes don’t pull together and pucker.
Tip: This method works for joining other shapes, too!
Start with a securing stitch at the top of the current jewel (make one stitch around the last warp and split the working yarn ), to make sure that the yarn stays in place.
Gather one stitch at the tip of each jewel shape …
Continue all around.
Pull in the circle enough to reduce the opening without pulling in the jewels too much.
Next, add the hexagons all around the jewel circle, like a ring or border.
For a neat border, first attach hexagons to the bottom sides of the jewels as shown.
Finally, “insert” a hexagon each into the remaining spaces.
Tip: If you use the hexagon tails facing towards the jewel circle as shown, you can use those tails for the sewing and you will have no tails left after that … which makes a really neat edging for the table topper with no more tails to weave in.
There you have it! All done! Serve with bread and cheese and a beverage of your choice …
This evening, the Weave Together attendees are invited to a Shop, Sip & Weave Night at the Marketplace (the TURTLEs will be on exhibit). While only Weave Together patrons can attend, it doesn’t mean that we can’t have any fun here on the blog!
Congratulations to Gwen HERNLEY, who won the muud bag and a TURTLE loom of her choice! The winner has been notified. Thank you to all who participated!
The theme of the evening is traveling, and I think there is no better way to travel than with a pin loom.
When it comes to traveling in style with a pin loom, I discovered a perfectly sized case from the muud company (available through Universal Yarn). I like the Heaven bag for my Original TURTLE looms, and there is enough space for the tools, yarns, and pattern.
Photo: Long Thread Media
A Heaven bag (and a TURTLE loom of the winner’s choice) will be raffled off at the Shop, Sip & Weave event, and we will give away another combo here on the blog.
The giveaway on the blog is open to all pin-loom lovers … for readers it’s a chance to win, for Weave Together attendees it’s a second chance in case they don’t win at the retreat.
TO ENTER, leave a comment here on this blog, telling us where you would love to travel with your new loom case.
The giveaway is open now and will close at midnight CDT, March 25th, 2025.
The winner will be determined randomly, and the winner’s name will be posted here on this blog.
