I have an evolving list of hobbies I want to start and crafting techniques I want to sample. When I was about fourteen I tried weaving on a kind stranger's loom. This beautiful craft is still on my list, waiting for the day when I set down my crochet hook for an evening and pick up a shuttle. Handwoven Editor Madelyn van der Hoogt joins us to share a little bit about weaving as well as give examples of fabulous ways to fuse weaving and crochet.

-- Toni

You already love yarn, how it feels in your hands when you crochet, how it looks in the finished piece. How about combining crocheting with weaving to find more reasons to love yarn? You can start with a simple rigid-heddle loom, small pin loom, or triangular loom before investing in something larger.

John Mullarkey's shawl (at left) won Best of Show in Handwoven's 2010 Not Just for Socks contest. It combines small squares of woven cloth (created on the very simplest of pin looms) with crochet joins. Zann Carter won Most Innovative with her capelet (below), combining pieces woven on several different-sized triangular looms with crochet joins and embellishments.

You can combine crochet (and knitting) with weaving in myriad ways and join the dedicated readers of Handwoven magazine by becoming a weaver. Woven fabric will inspire you with more ideas for using yarn. You can fill your house with table linens, towels, rugs, curtains, and more. You can weave light and airy laces, too (and they're quick: you can weave a lace scarf in a day).

Weaving gives you lots of new reasons to collect yarn. If you are surrounded now with baskets and bins full of skeins, when you become a weaver, you'll also fill your walls with shelves of colorful, gleaming cones.

So don't wait, subscribe to Handwoven today and fall in love with yarn all over again. 

P.S. Download Heather Winslow's free article on knitted and crocheted trims at weavingtoday.com.