Waffle Weave Towels on the Rigid Heddle Loom: Its easier than you think!

Waffle Weave Towels on a Rigid Heddle Loom

If you've never tried waffle weave, here's the fun part: it looks almost unremarkable on the loom, then transforms the moment it hits the wash. The floats you're weaving now — the parts that look a little loose and uneven — are exactly what pull in and pucker into those deep, absorbent little pockets once the yarn relaxes in water. It's one of my favorite "trust the process" weaves.

The good news: the sequence itself is simple once it clicks. Here's how I wove mine.

What You'll Need

Loom & heddle: A rigid heddle loom with a 10, 12, or 12.5 dent heddle. I used a 12.5 dent heddle on my 32" Ashford rigid heddle loom.

Yarn: Maurice Brassard 8/2 cotton in four colors — Natural, Saumon, Vert Pâle (light green), and Vert Foncé (dark green). Use whatever colors speak to you, in as many or as few as you like. I sourced mine from The Woolery, though it's widely available.

Other supplies: A pickup stick. No pickup stick? A spare shuttle or long ruler works just as well.

Warping the Loom

To keep warping simple, I threaded 2 strands through each slot and hole (using a 12.5 dent heddle — 10 or 12 will also work) until the project measured 16 inches wide. I changed colors randomly across the warp, adding 2 warp threads of dark green — 4 threads total, since everything's doubled — as a divider between each color change.

Once the loom is warped and tied onto the front beam, weave a few rows of waste yarn first. This spreads and evens out the warp before you start the real weaving.

Setting Up the Pickup Stick

Put your heddle in the down position so you can see every warp thread sitting in its slot. Insert the pickup stick behind the heddle, going over 2 threads and under 2 (over 4/under 2 in this doubled setup) all the way across.

Once it's threaded, slide the pickup stick back toward the beam and let it rest there — it'll wait quietly until you need it again mid-sequence.

Weaving the Pattern

Pick one color for your weft — I chose the lighter green so the texture would really stand out against it.

Waffle weave runs on a six-pick repeat, alternating warp and weft floats. Those floats are the whole trick: they're what shrink and bloom into the towel's signature pockets after washing.

The six-pick sequence:

1. Heddle down
2. Heddle up — pickup stick slid forward and kept flat (creates warp floats)
3. Heddle down
4. Heddle up
5. Heddle neutral — pickup stick slid forward and turned on its side (creates weft floats)
6. Heddle up

Any step that doesn't mention the pickup stick means it stays parked near the back beam.

Keep repeating the sequence until you hit your desired length. I left about 1.5 inches on each end for the hem, with roughly 24 inches of waffle weave for the towel body itself.

For this set, I wove a second towel in plain weave with randomly alternating weft colors, so the two would coordinate without matching exactly — texture and simplicity, side by side.

Your Turn

Have you tried waffle weave before, or is this your first time? I'd love to see how yours turns out — drop a comment below, and follow along on Instagram and YouTube for more weaving projects.