More blanket saga

I'm going to have to start thinking of better names for blanket posts, lest they all run together.

I took Ray's blanket off the loom yesterday, sewed the ends of the panels and washed and dried on hot. Today, I laid them out on the floor, matched up stripes, basted by hand and then machine. I will take them in for a professional pressing before I do the hems. I don't mind pressing big pieces of plain weave, but twill kind of crawls up into itself during wet finishing and some of that will press back out. And, yes, I could do it with my little hand iron, but it's a real pain to get it all just right. And I REALLY don't like the hours it takes to do it well. So, I'll take it to the cleaners. Just call me lazy.

I like the blanket. It's a nice weight. It's soft. The stripes match up. There is, though, on little fly in the ointment. Here's the blanket, before the panels were sewn.





See that darker stripe toward the left of the panel? Yeah. Me, too. Right away. Actually, I saw it while I was weaving, but there was nothing to be done about it. Wall of Troy is one of those patterns that when I'm weaving it, I have to kind of keep my eyes focused on the overall pattern. If I start looking at diamonds and squares it will drive me nuts and before I know it, I'm off, or think I am, and am taking rows out. But, I did see it. And I know what caused it.

Calculations being what they are for yardage, etc. this warp should not have taken as much yardage as it did. And I have no idea why. But, it became apparent that I'd be lucky to have enough of the dual colored yarn for the whole thing, even "going to the stash shelves and finding a cone I bought a while back to finish it up." And there's the catch. A little difference in color, which, if I'd know about it before I put the warp on, I could have interspersed it evenly throughout the warp. Heck, if I'd known it was different, I could have used that whole bout in the MIDDLE of the panel. But, no. It didn't show up until I started weaving, and there was no way I was going to back that whole fuzzy, lint-pill creating warp off, re-thread reed AND heddles and fight it back on.

So, yet another blanket joins the not-quite-right group. I know Ray will never care, and he'll love it, and treasure it because Nai-Nai made it, and he'll have one like Ge Ge (older brother). It will have his name and the year I made it embroidered on it, and it will always be his. And that's really what matters.

But, in case I ever start making blankets for sale, I now have new name/slogan options. Katie's Blankets: Guaranteed Mistake in Every One. Perfection Schmecktion: Blankets for the Non-Picky. Blankets for Error-one: What, You Think You're Perfect?

Sighs. Rolls eyes. Goes up to thread a placemat warp.


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