Weave This || Woven Drink Coaster

I received a great question from a reader looking for what type of loom you could weave a coaster on. This is such a great question, because the answer is any loom you own! As long as your loom is larger then the size of the coaster you want to weave, you’re all set.

I’m going to show you how I wove up some coasters on my loom that is about 10 x 15 inches. My goal was to weave up four coasters that were similar, making each about 4 x 4 inches.

I warped my loom so that there were a little more then 8 inches across. I made sure that there was an even number of warp threads across my loom, so that I could split the warps evenly between the coasters. To warp 8 inches on my loom, I ended up with 34 warps total which means 17 warps for each coaster. To make sure I didn’t lose track of my warp threads, I put a piece of washi tape in the middle of the warp threads. I also measured half of my loom height and placed a piece of washi tape at the middle.

My loom is large enough for me to weave four coasters and still have warp threads long enough to tie off each coaster’s edge. If your loom isn’t this long, then just weave two or even one coaster at a time (or you could always make yourself a cardboard loom to the size that you want).

I wove three rows of plain weave across my warp threads. I like to do this to lock in my warp threads and give my weave a strong structure. After that I made my coaster design using my favorite doodle-weave technique. I picked out a twisted cotton for my base thread, then I chose three more threads to weave my doodling. The beauty of the doodle weave is you just play around with weaving one thread, then switch to another. With one thread, you weave across different warp threads to create different organic shapes.

For example, I might take a thread and weave across four warp threads. Next I’ll return weave across seven warp threads. Then weave the next row across three warp threads and continue in this way just weaving the thread where I feel looks best.

One thing to note is, since you’re free-weaving your rows, you will end up with a row or two being woven over and under the same warp threads for just one row. Don’t worry about this too much. As long as most of your weave will be woven across the warp threads in opposite directions your weave will hold strong. Just be flexible and fit your weave together as best as you can.

As I went along I would fill in the gaps with my base thread. This is a really fun way to weave and make interesting shapes. Here is a video I made on doodle-weaving that will give you an idea on the weaving approach:

I also have a blog post on doodle-weaving with more explanation and pictures here.

I should also mention that depending on how you weave your rows, you might end up with some gaps between colors. I always make sure that I have a lose turn of the thread so that the threads on both sides will lay in the gap, but if you have a large gap I have a blog post with different suggestions on how to close those up.

I’m using this doodle weaving to make the four coasters related, but not identical, which I think makes them more interesting. Next week I’ll share how to add the cute tassels to the edges.