Blankets, blankets, blankets

 Blanket 1 is off the loom.  Because my loom is only 36 inches wide,  I had to piece it.  I'm slightly off on the one blue block, but the rest are fine.  Leave it to me to do a checky or plaid pattern for my first big weaving project in a while, that had to be pieced at any rate. 
It took a while to twist those fringes.  Even with my handy little fringe twisting device, my fingers were a little roughed up from it but I guess it's an occupational hazard for fringed items.   I have to admit that fringes on a throw type blanket make it look nice.  I don't really like them for practicality though.  When you pull a fringed blanket up to your chin, the fringes get in the way and tickle your nose!  

I tossed it in the washer with cold water and agitated it on and off for a few minutes, checking every minute until it was perfect.  It took just a couple of minutes for the yarn to get clean, fuzz up, soften and fill in the weave structure.   It's soft, drapey and yummy.   If it hadn't been slated for a gift, I'd keep it myself.  

Same with blanket number 2 which is on the loom right now.  I love the wide bands of colours.  The weft is a dark grey.  If I had a lighter grey, it would have been my preference, but the dark grey does look really nice.  I'd forgotten that I'd switched the direction of the twill every colour change for the plaid, so the pattern on the wide stripes is interesting.  It doesn't detract from the look though, so I'm going to leave it.  I don't want to have to re-thread the heddles unless I get an virulent attack of inspiration. 

This blanket won't have fringes.  I'll just hem the ends for a clean and useful finish.  That change brought up a major problem with my math.  I forgot to remove the amount I'd allotted for fringes and when I subtracted the excess loom waste, I manged to wind on a longer warp than for the checky blanket.  I'm thinking I might have enough extra (about 3/4 yard or maybe more) to have a couple of matching pillows or a bag of some sort.  What was I thinking?

I'm not that fond of tying on warps but I'll have to admit that it's really fast and effective for multiples in large projects.  I wouldn't be comfortable about winding on more than one of these blankets at a time because they are pretty bulky and I'd worry about keeping my tension even with that much on the loom.   Since the piecing of the two halves, the fringe twisting and all the other finishing bits and pieces takes as long as it does to weave off the fabric, not having to re-thread heddles and re-sley the reed speeds up the process immensely.