So now that I’ve pinned a couple potholder pictures on Pinterest, my feed is flooded with pin looms covered in cotton loops. I saw a partially woven potholder that had adjacent loops twisted over each other. There were no instructions or guidance, so it took me a bit of experimentation, and I didn’t make an exact replica, but I did enjoy working on a new technique.

I found it easiest to work this pattern from the center. I twisted one strand from each adjacent loop together then ran the weaving loop through the center of the twist. I then twisted the next two strands in the opposite way. It took some mistakes and undoing to get the pattern right. I found if the warm colors were up I probably had the twist right. The next two loops are woven normally for potholders, where the horizontal loop goes over or under both strands of the same vertical loop. After the second pass, the vertical loops are in the original position and I could make another twisted pass. So even though it was challenging to puzzle out, the actual weave technique boils down to three rows: one twisted, two plain.

In the finished weave, the strands aren’t twisted, but rather curve back and forth vertically, which makes an interesting X pattern. As I write this post, I noticed a weaving mistake. Ah well. It is a potholder. I do find that if I leave a pattern for a bit and come back, I’m more likely to spot such errors. I was too eager to cast this one off.