I’ve noticed that weavers seem to have some time on their hands right now…for some reason…
It’s a great time to look through your supplies on hand and make what you can. Some weavers are commenting that they don’t have a lot of yarn and can’t get more for one reason or another. Fortunately, you can make a lot of sakiori with a little yarn. If you have some fine cotton, tencel, bamboo or such, and some old clothes, you can make a lot of different things (also available here).
Last week I got an email from a new weaver who had seen my article in the May/June 2019 issue of Handwoven (which I believe was the last issue before they went under new ownership). The article was entitled “Building a Better Picnic Table” and featured two projects on one warp, which was the issue theme. I made a table cover and matching seat covers using old vinyl tablecloths as weft. The weaver who wrote me wanted to know how to convert those patterns into placemats.
Luckily, I had made placemats as my sample piece as I was learning to work with the vinyl tablecloths (which are just a little tricky). It’s also really convenient that it only takes one tablecloth to make four placemats. So, for anyone with a little carpet warp and an old tablecloth, here are the instructions: