Welcome to 2025!

Posted on by texasgabi

Have you woven your first new year pin-loom weavie yet? It may serve as a starting point to your “spend more creative time and spend it wisely” resolution for the New Year 2025.

So that you can keep such a New Year resolution, how about a “no-stress 2025 patchwork project”!

What’s a “No-Stress 2025 Patchwork Project”?

Here are a few “rules” …

  • Just start to weave … no need to decide what your project will be.
  • Any loom(s), any yarn(s) are fine.
  • When you feel like it, weave a piece or more and put them together (but even the putting-together-right-away is optional).
  • I recommend that you store your progress in a project bag or place for easy access.

At the end of the year you will have “something” … this may be just the one piece that you’re going to make today, and if that’s all you got then you can call it your 2025 coaster project and be proud of your accomplishment.

If you have a few pieces or pieces of different shapes, attach them to a premade blanket, and there is your patchwork blanket.

If you have many pieces in a plethora of colors and yarns … put them together into a blanket, a shawl, a ruana, a pillow, a table runner …

In short, anything goes, as long as you are enjoying it and are doing it without being stressed. You can only fail this resolution if you don’t start it!

I made two sample starter pieces, a Zoom loom square and an Original TURTLE R hexagon, using Paintbox Simply Aran (209 Soft Fudge) which comes close to the new Pantone color of the year 2025 Mocha Mousse. But remember, your starter piece can be ANYTHING pin-loom woven.

I decorated my square and hexagon with an embroidered year number, but it is perfectly ok to keep yours blank (or sew on a charm) and put your work into a zip-lock bag labeled “2025 no-stress patchwork project”.

Share your progress on social media and see what others are up to. I recommend using hashtag #NoStressPinLoomWeaving2025.

If “no-stress” and “patchwork” are not your thing, I will share a couple of more ideas over the next few days for alternative projects that will carry you through the year, so watch out for those posts.

Let’s add a little bit fun with a TINY GIVEAWAY!

We have winners! Congratulations to Joan Washburn, Linda, Linda Thompson, Connie Nichol, and Amelie. The winners have been notified via email.

I got these 2025 charms for crafting projects. I won’t need them all, so I decided to share some of them with you to decorate your 2025 project. I will send the winners one charm attached to a greeting card, which means that anyone who can receive a greeting card via USPS Postal Service can participate. I will give away 5 charms, either gold or silver colored, your choice. All you need to do is leave a comment below this post, mentioning your preference, “gold” or “silver”, by the end of Saturday, January 4th (midnight CST). If there are more comments than charms, Mr. Random will help to decide the winners. I will update this blog on Sunday morning with the winning names.

Happy 2025 weaving!

My 2022 No-Stress Patchwork Project

Posted on by texasgabi

I’m a little late in chatting about my 2022 no-stress patchwork project because I needed some lead time to be able to show the idea … all no-stress, of course!

This year’s project idea is a culmination of my love of yarn cakes … and getting stuck out of town a few weeks ago. I “had” to stop at JoAnns to find something to do, and I discovered Freelance yarn cakes by JoAnn’s Big Twist yarn line. These cakes feature pleasant color combinations in worsted weight acrylics. While the knitting gauge says 14 sts/4″, it certainly looked and felt “just right” for a regular sett TURTLE . Later sampling confirmed that indeed this yarn is pleasant to weave. It creates a dense but not stiff cloth.

The yarn comes in 10 color combinations. I got “one of each”.

Doing less than one cake per month should be doable, even if life gets hectic. The idea is to do some relaxing weaving just off the cake, then put the hexagons together to make a blanket.

The first cake resulted in 43 hexagons on the original TURTLE Loom™. The design will be in rows of 14, which will yield about three rows per cake, enough to get a good impression of the color run of that cake.

The “First Cake”

  • Yarn is Big Twist Freelance, color Purple Red Orange Multi.
  • One cake yielded 43 hexagons on the original TURTLE Loom R-regular.
  • I wove off the cake, but I cut the yarn to make solid colored hexagons, except for some white/purple sections where the colors just changed too frequently.
  • Leftover yarn ends that I cut out be fore color changes will make nice tassels.
  • The yarn is fun to work with, but it changes sometimes from thinner and shiny to slightly thicker/puffier and dull. Those changes do not affect the weaving, though.
  • Based on the yield of one cake (43 hexagons) I plan the blanket to have 3 rows for each color with 14 hexagons per row. The spare hexagon is saved in case another color is one short, or it will be used in another patchwork project.
  • I did block my work, because a reviewer of the yarn had shared the concern that the yarn bleeds. I do not detect any color bleeding in my piece.

The next color – randomly selected – will be “Blue Green Multi”, which is a nice combination of wintry pastel colors.

I’m excited to see how this will work out.

Will you join in this year? What are your plans for a no-stress patchwork project?