West of the cloister

This week on my loom are some placemats in a pattern that I’ve called “Meadow Valley.” Meadow Valley is located just west of Ephrata (Lancaster County) in an idyllic setting around the tiny Meadow Run.

“Meadow Valley” is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch dobbelstein — our word for any kind of a plaid pattern. In the homespun era, the Pennsylvania Dutch grew flax, harvested it, prepared it, and spun it into yarn. It was then taken to a local weaver who used the yarn to produce yards of linen for home use. These dobbelstein linens were used for all sorts of household items from clothing to bed linens.

“Meadow Valley” being woven on the loom

I’ve called this pattern “Meadow Valley,” because a young Louisa Pleam used to head there with her aunt in the 1860s, loaded down with their homespun yarn. Louisa’s Aunt Betsy and Uncle Levi Bingaman were householders at the Ephrata Cloister. The cloister was a semi-monastic religious community founded in 1732 by Johann Conrad Beissel on the banks of the Cocalico Creek in Lancaster County. Louisa learned how to spin flax into yarn from her aunt and the sisters at the Ephrata Cloister, and, according to her 1936 obituary, Louisa Pleam Spangler was one of the best demonstrators of hand spinning in Lancaster County.

Meadow Valley, where Betsy and Louisa took their handspun yarn, was home to a weaver with the last name Kiddinger. Weaver Kiddinger charged Betsy and Louisa 14 cents per yard for plainer, simpler weaving and 50 cents per yard for more time-consuming weaves.

This is one of his patterns that he wove for Betsy and Louisa in the 19th century. I decided to change up a rather plain plaid into something with a bit more interest by adding a twill structure to it. I’m enjoying the rhythmic large blocks interrupted by smaller alternating lines. I’m guessing Weaver Kiddinger would’ve charged 25 cent per yard for a dobbelstein zwillich ‘plaid twill.’

Philibert (22 August 2025), The Bullfrog Inn