Weave a Memory with Little Looms Winter 2025

When I was fresh out of college, I worked in the education department at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum. Alongside an impressive lineup of manure spreaders, visitors could also admire quilts, embroidered towels, handwoven rugs, handsewn garments, and many more handmade textiles. Whenever I gave tours, somebody would invariably point out items they remembered from their youth. “My grandmother made a quilt just like that!” or “I remember my aunt weaving rag rugs on an old loom!”

Traveling Tapestry Cuffs by Alison Irwin.

Even better, sometimes people would share stories of how they continued these traditions, whether a relative taught them or they took it upon themselves to learn in honor of those memories. It is such a wonderfully human impulse to connect with our past through the things we create with our hands. We make, therefore we are.

Fuzzy Bunny Slippers by Margaret Stump.

It’s this deep connection to textile memories that inspired the “Weaving a Memory” theme for the Winter 2025 issue. I challenged designers to look to their past as they created projects.

The results, as you might expect, are all delightful. With 19 wonderful projects for all your favorite looms and weavers of all levels, you’re sure to find inspiration for your next project.

Rigid-heddle weavers can enjoy 11 projects, including a scarf inspired by embroidery floss friendship bracelets, a scarf that combines clasped-warp designs with beads to evoke the memory of a meteor shower, and a rag rug runner inspired by the author’s Norwegian heritage.

Pin-loom weavers have just as much awaiting them in the issue, including a pair of perfectly fluffy pink pin-loom bunny slippers, an heirloom-worthy quilt, and an adorable little dinosaur all dressed up for shabbat.

Inkle weavers will also delight as several projects, including a three-part of inkle key fobs designed to celebrate all the firsts that come with a new key and a gorgeous belt that doubles as a lesson in more efficient Baltic pick-up that you won’t want to miss.

In these pages, you’ll also find articles to help you make new weaving memories and bring your weaving with you, including:

• Instructions to build a travel loom using a picture frame and a pencil (don’t worry, there’s a project to go with it, too!).

• One weaver’s process for designing gorgeous scarves out of bits and pieces stash yarns —including an ingenious method for yarn wraps.

• Sewing machine tips and tricks to make your sewing life easier—even if you only use your machine for hemming.

There is, of course, so much more to the Winter 2025 issue than I have room to write about here. I encourage you to go ahead and take a look for yourself, and check out the library for all the individual project PDFs for easy printing.

Happy weaving!

Christina