Weaving Potholders For Mother

Apparently a "new" craze was invented in 2010, based on a Rainbow Loom, which is a plastic tool that children and the young at heart use to weave bands into bracelets, charms, etc. Setting aside the new and unpleasant sexual connotations that have been given to "rainbow", weaving does not seem to be very new to me. Humans have been weaving for as long as we have been wearing cloth clothing, for millennia.

When I was seven or eight I found an old potholder loom and I persuaded my mother to buy colorful nylon loops so that I could weave potholders for her. I enjoyed working with the loops of pretty colors. The steady, cumulative work of weaving was relaxing. And I was fully aware that I was making something that would protect my mother 's hands from the oven heat when she baked and that made me very happy. I wove many potholders for her and she used them all. Seventy years later Mother still had some of the potholders that I wove so long ago, now tattered, burned, and faded. I inherited them back from her. I now see that my lopsided potholders were not very good and I am touched that she used them at all, much less for her entire life as she did.

Caption: Weaving Potholders For Mother

by Annmarie Throckmorton 2019