The End of the Summer Blankets

After some delays, I've finally finished seaming and hemming the last of the summer weight blankets I wove last summer.  I wrote about the first two in August.

The second two full-size blankets and the little cradle blanket use a stripe arrangement I found on a blanket in the Textile Museum of Canada.  It was lots of fun to weave, but required some care to make the stripes match when the two widths were seamed together.   I did okay.

The center seam and the hems are sewing with a very sturdy linen singles.

How to Keep an Ancient Cat Warm

Even though winters here are mild, they're not so mild that I don't feel the need to economize on heating.  The thermostat is set at 68, and I habitually wear a sweater and heavy wool socks.  But Honey, my Very Old Cat, minds the cold terribly.  For her, the solution is an electric cat warming pad, a knitted blanket, and a little quilt.  (The alternate solution is to sit in my lap.)

Believe me, if I thought she'd wear a sweater, I knit one for her.

Learning to be cloth

Cloth as it comes from the loom is referred to as "gray goods" or "greige."  I think of it as proto-cloth - a coalition of warp and weft threads that haven't yet realized that they're part of something bigger.  For the cloth that I weave, the transition from gray goods to finished cloth starts with washing.

I take a fairly old-fashioned approach to washing my gray goods:  lots of water, lots of soap, and a little agitation (of the cloth, not me - I actually find the process quite relaxing.)

And when I say "soap," I mean real soap, not detergent.  Try to think back to your high school chemistry class - I'm sure this topic was covered there.  Real soap flakes can be hard to find, so for years I made soap and shaved flakes with a cheese grater.  Recently I've found that I can buy Zote brand soap flakes locally, so I'm giving them a try.  For a bath tub of hot water, I use about a cup of soap flakes that has been dissolved in a quart or two of water.

Here's recent warp of wool and cotton blankets in the wash water.  Don't see the blankets?  That's because the soap has done a good job of binding to the various waxes and spinning oils from the yarns and holding them in suspension.

Here's the first rinse water.

And here's the second rinse water - that's more like it!

In the time line between banging cloth on stones by the stream's edge and the modern domestic washing machine, many laundry aids were invented.  Most people have at least a passing acquaintance with washboards, but the aerating washer is far less well known.

Tin plated washers are still available, but I decided to go with a non-rusting plastic version.

From Mobile Washer

I really admire the Mobile Washer folks for their commitment to this piece of appropriate technology.  And isn't that a great shade of blue?

I bought my washer without a handle and then attached a standard broom handle so that I can stand while agitating the blankets in the tub.  I use it in both the wash and the rinse waters.

Summer weight blankets

This being summer, I decided to use up some mill end yarns I bought years ago to weave light-weight blankets.  These are woven of cotton and wool.  This type of blanket is typical of farmhouse production in the early to mid-nineteenth century.  Commercially spun cotton became available in the mid 1790s.

Home looms typically accommodated widths no greater than about 45 inches, so blankets and sheets were made up of multiple widths that were then seamed together.  The loom I'm using for the blankets will weave 36 inches wide.

Once taken off the loom and washed in plenty of soap suds and hot water, the blankets were cut and the edges of two widths were loosely whipped together, then opened out. and pressed.  This is the wrong side.

This is the right side after pressing.