I made a mat loom out of an old 16 1/2” x 20 1/2” picture frame, spacing the nails 1/2” apart. Because it’s a rectangle it requires loopers of two lengths, 13” and 16″. I decided to make loops from 3” wide t-shirt strips cut horizontally across the shirt, 2 1/2” if the tee was thicker than usual.

(You can read about how I arrived at these particular measurements in this blog post.)

Weaving the first mat went smoothly, if slowly. A 20″ mat loom seems huge compared to a 7” potholder loom!! After I’d woven about a third of the way across I stopped to cut 1/4″ from each side of the rest of the loops, which made them 2 to 2 1/2” wide in hopes of keeping my first t-shirt mat from turning out as stiff as my first t-shirt potholder!

For my 2nd mat I cut loops 13 and 16” long by 2 1/2” wide, 2 if the tee was heavy, which turned out to be just right! YAY!!

Finished mats measure about 13 1/2″ x 18″, a nice size for placemats, for a cat or small dog to sleep on, or to put by the door for wet shoes.