Warp Speed, Aye!

Day 340: "Warp speed, aye, Captain!" I measured the warp for this project on September 13, a mere five days ago. On the 14th, I spent all day putting it on the loom, i.e., mounting it on the back beam, threading 502 heddles, threading the reed, winding it onto the beam. I made a few passes with the shuttle that evening just to be sure I'd threaded the double-width draft correctly and satisfied that I had, I went to bed with the backache from hell. On the 15th, I wove for a few hours after a work party, and then again for a few hours during the morning of the 16th. Yesterday, I got serious, and by the time the day was done, I had put an additional three feet on the project, leaving only two to go this morning.

The weaving is done, but the blanket is not yet complete. The ends need to be hemstitched before the fringes can be twisted and knotted. I've just recently started using twisted fringe to finish projects and feel that they give a more elegant touch to my handwovens. This style fringe is time-consuming, though, especially when you're talking about 502 threads on each end which will be twisted as two pairs of three or four threads each. It will probably take me longer to finish the fringe than it did to weave the coverlet.