How to Use Pattern Playground

💻 Pattern Playground works best on a computer or tablet. It works on phones too; the chart shrinks to fit your screen.

Pattern Playground lets you plan a potholder on screen before you weave it. Pick your loom, color each loop, try fancy weaves, see a preview of the finished potholder, email yourself your pattern, and add exactly the loops you need to your cart.

A 10" PRO design: Rust warp, Peanut weft with Deep Turquoise stripes, in a Zigzag 2/2 twill.

Two words to know

• Warp: the first loops you stretch across the loom. They're the numbered circles across the top.
• Weft: the loops you weave over and under the warp. They're the numbered circles down the left side.

Quick start

Add, change or remove colors in the Color Key

• Add a color: tap the dashed + Add color box at the end of the Color Key. A new square appears and becomes the active color; tap a swatch to choose its color.
• Change a color: tap the color in the Color Key, then tap a different swatch. Every loop in that color changes with it.
• Remove a color: hover over the color (on a phone, tap it first) and tap the small X in its corner. The color leaves the Color Key, and any loops in that color go blank so you can fill them with another color. Changed your mind? Tap Undo.

Making a mug rug

Pick Mug Rug to plan a little 10 × 10 square on a 19-peg loom with 7" loops. You use only the odd pegs (1, 3, 5 … 19) and skip every other peg, so the chart is numbered 1, 3, 5 … 19 to match your loom. The weaving instructions use those peg numbers too.

The Color Options buttons

Undo

Takes back your last change. You can keep tapping it to step further back. Ctrl + Z (Cmd + Z on a Mac) works too.

Start Over

Clicked around a little too much? Start Over gives you a simple check pattern in your first two or three colors, with the weave back to plain tabby. Changed your mind? Tap Undo.

More

Opens three extra tools:
Randomize Colors swaps each color in your Color Key for a random swatch, so you can try new color combos with the same layout.
Fill Loom colors every warp and weft loop with the active (light blue) color. Handy for a solid base before you add stripes.
Clean View hides the highlight, the dot circles, the X boxes and the + Add color box, so your chart is ready for a screenshot. Tap any color to keep designing.

Reading the chart

• | in a square: the warp is on top, so your weft goes under.
• — in a square: the weft is on top, so your weft goes over.
• Black dot beside a circle: marks a color that's easy to mix up with another in your design.

Mark a color with a dot

Hover a color in the Color Key and tap the small circle on top of its square. Tap again to remove it. Here Coconut is marked, so its pegs get a dot.

The right-hand panel

More weave tools

Tap More weave tools under Reset Weave for the extras:

• Set every square to: All | or All —: turns the whole loom to warp on top (|) or weft on top (—) and turns Edit Weave on, so you only click the squares you want to change.
• Repeat: copies the top-left block of loops (say 4 × 4) across the whole loom, both the loop colors and the weave. Design that corner first, then tap Repeat.
• Longest float + Check Floats: marks any float longer than your limit (see below). Clear removes the marks.

Split loops and floats

With split loops on, each square becomes four small squares, one per strand crossing. A red ring means that float is longer than your limit.

A float is a loop that skips over or under several loops in a row. Short floats add texture; long ones make a floppy potholder. Set Longest float (3 is a good start, 4 with split loops), tap Check Floats, and fix any ringed squares with Edit Weave.

Potholder Preview

Below the designer, Pattern Playground draws your potholder as it could look once it's woven. It updates as you change colors or the weave. Real loops are a little fuzzier, and every potholder is unique!

Weaving instructions

The row-by-row guide on your pattern sheet. "Over 2" means your weft goes over two warp loops. Repeated rows say "same as row 1".

With split loops, each weft loop gets two lines (Row 5a and 5b), and counts are in warp strands, not whole loops. Count strands on the loom as 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b and so on.

Get your pattern by email

Your pattern sheet has your preview, Color Key, chart, warp colors and a row-by-row weft table.

1. Tap Email Me My Pattern, type your email and tap Send My Pattern. The box to also get our newsletter (new patterns, color releases and deals) is ticked for you; untick it if you only want your pattern.
2. Open the email from Acorns & Twigs. Don't see it in a few minutes? Check your promotions or spam folder.
3. Tap Open My Pattern. Your pattern sheet opens after a few seconds.
4. Tap Print / Save as PDF at the top. In the print window, choose Save as PDF to keep a copy.

The email also lists the loops you need, with a Get My Loops button that fills your cart, and a link to open your design again and keep playing.

Add your loops to the cart

Every color in your design, with how many loops it uses and how many Rosa packs to buy (30 loops per 10" pack, 20 per 7" pack). Already have some colors at home? Tap Add on just the ones you need, or Add all colors to cart.

Questions

Why don't I see a color I've heard about? Pattern Playground shows the colors we currently sell. New colors appear the day they're released.

Where did my design go? Your latest design is saved in the browser you used. A different browser or device won't have it, so save a Share Link, or email yourself the pattern, for designs you want to keep.

Something looks off after I changed loom size. Changing size redraws the loom. Pick your weave again and recolor your warp and weft.

Show us what you make! Share your finished potholder in the Keep On Looping Facebook group.