Great Not-So-Big Green Blanket
Tuesday, November 14th, 2006I must have true finishing avoidance disorder. The Great Big Green Blanket that I am making for Michelle, well, I finished weaving it back in July. All I needed to do was finish the hemstiching at the starting edge of the blanket, trim the fringe and wet finish the blanket. It’s November now. So the unfinished blanket has been sitting there, patiently waiting, for four months now.
But last night, in a burst of energy (probably inspired by a yummy dinner at The Foundation) I sewed up my Lucy in the Sky Cardi and blocked it AND finished the blanket!
At first I attempted to wet finish the blanket by hand with a plastic tub full of warm water and lavender-scented woolwash. It was too tiring, so I took the wet blanket and dumped it in the washing machine. We have a front-loader and I’m told that front-loader washing machines are terrible for felting wool. So, I started up a full cycle on the machine with two glugs of Eucalan. Every few minutes, I’d stop the machine and take a look at the blanket… to see if it was fulling or felting too quickly. After about 15 or 20 minutes, I stopped the washing and set the machine to rinse and spin out. After another 15 or 20 minutes, almost all the water had been spun from the blanket. The resulting fabric was more cohesive, nicely fulled… and much smaller!
The blanket is originally 450 ends with a sett of 10 epi — so that would be 45″ on the loom. Then the measurement off the loom was 40″ x 78″. Already, the fabric had pulled in to be narrower… After fulling, the blanket is now 36″ x 62″. So the blanket shrunk 25% of it’s original size! Now, it’s a nice and compact lap blanket perfect for staying cozy on the couch.
The colours are, well, more intense than I had originally planned… because I misplaced a decimal point in my dye calculations… So the colours are basically ten times darker than I had intended… oops. But I’m completely pleased with the result. I took a clean stiff-bristled hairbrush and brushed the whole surface of the blanket (I brushed so hard I gave myself a workout AND a blister!). The delicately-coloured brushed mohair weft creates a beautiful hazy nap that softens the more intensely coloured wool warp. I’m so in love with this blanket, I want to make ten more just like it… in all different colours of course.
