On Sunday I finished off the baby blanket which I made for a relative's Christening as an alternative to the usual white bible approach. It uses blue and cream cashmere / merino wool mix - it's lovely and soft.
Following the scarf I made for Ivan which I was quite pleased with, I wanted to continue to push myself rather than playing it safe as scary as it is when it's a gift! So I wrote a draft which I've done before but never actually seen into fruition! The draft isn't as sophisticated as it sounds - it's a diamond shape using 4 shafts with a tabby weave border. The challenge here was to combine the two and trust myself to get the draft right. As basic as it sounds, I haven't done this before!
I took my usual approach to making the warp - improvisation in light of my warping board being about 250 miles away. Here is a photo of that taking shape - my main worry was that the dog would knock over the top-heavy green lamp which she duly did!
It turns out that I hadn't taken into account the reed width. There weren't enough dents in my reed to handle the width of the blanket despite the warp being capable of a wider piece. So that meant I had to cut chunks of warp out while it was partially threaded. That was scary!
Anyway, no real harm done. The blanket is just a bit narrower than I had anticipated. The upside is that I have some leftover wool :)
Once on the loom I struggled a bit to get the tension right and you can see that in the next photo. It's all a bit wobbly!
Also you can just make out a mistake running through the warp. I accidentally missed one of the reed dents when threading so it left a gap. It looks worse on the loom though - when I took it off it just about disappeared.
Where's Margot? Hiding in the corner from the storm outside.
I like the diamond pattern and I'm pleased that the scale turned out well - I was a bit concerned that the shapes would be too small but they seem quite bold. The tabby border helps a lot too because it means I can get straight edges for once!
Finally I wasn't sure how to handle the ends. I opted eventually to tie knots and have a really short fringe, although I originally anticipated hemming the ends. However I rather like having the bold solid blue at either end because it highlights the blue throughout. So the fringe won.
Overall I'm quite pleased, hope baby likes it!
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