Sample Blanket

After a few failed attempts, I've got a new family of jacquard structures ready to test out. A cold makes my brain turn to mush, so figuring out the pattern presets for something that should be easy was a major challenge. In order to be sure that the structures don't have any flaws embedded in them, I decided to weave a sample blanket that includes all the colors (and combinations) I intend to use in the final version. Of course, mush-brain means I can hardly remember which of three shuttles to throw next, so one inch of weaving took a while.



From top, blue 1 + white 1, blue 1, 3, 5, and 7, tan 1 + white 1, tan 1, 3, 5, and 7, white 1, white 4. I've decided that white 4 needs to be a darker blend of tan and white, and will weave the rest of the sample blanket using a slightly revised version.

Until now, when I weave a design that wants 3 weft colors, I've used 9-end shaded satins, and that family of pattern presets have been thoroughly debugged. However, three wefts with this 16/2 cotton warp and weft means there's a bit too much space between the (for example) white picks, and I want the wefts to pack down more. So I made a set of pattern presets for 10-end shaded satins with 3 wefts. The numbers after the colors in the paragraph above refer to the satin type; 1 means 1/9 satin, 3 means 3/7 satin, etc. The biggest questions will be how much room the wefts have to wiggle with 10-end satin, and whether the backing on the finished cloth will help cure that.

Only time will tell. That, and wet-finishing, pressing, and applying backing.

Oh, by the way, the source image is a photo of the Channel Islands, shown below after significant modification in Pshop and indexing to 13 hues.



I'll weave it sideways, with enough border on all sides to allow it to be mounted on a canvas stretcher.