Feeling Home Shadow Weave Blanket Pattern
If you had asked the 20-year old version of myself where I thought I'd end up settling down, I never in a million years would have said Alabama. I grew up overseas, a military dependent, and always struggled with feeling a sense of a place being mine. Again, I am not a native southerner, and somehow here I am, in the deep south, making a home for me and my family. Growing up moving around a lot did teach me to embrace the idea that home is where your heart is, so even though it was unexpected that I'd live in Alabama, it is now my home and I am starting to learn what it feels like to have a true sense place. Nothing makes a place feel more like a home than the little comforts that fill the spaces where we live. Blankets are like traveling hugs, grounding me to a place more than anything else. Here I have created a blanket using a shadow weave pattern. Constructed from three panels woven continuously that are then cut and grafted together, it is a generous sized blanket that can be woven on a smaller 4-shaft loom.
Project at a Glance
Structure
Shadow Weave
Equipment
4-shaft loom, 20"; weaving width; 12-dent reed; 2 shuttles; 2 bobbins.
YarnsWarp: Cotton Fleece (80% pima cotton/20% merino wool; 222 yd/3.5 oz skein; Brown Sheep Company), CW620 Banana, 936 yd; CW762 Bering Sea Blue, 504 yd; CW385 Deep Sea Fog, 448 yd.
Weft: Cotton Fleece, CW620 Banana and CW762 Bering Sea Blue, 703 yd each.
Other Supplies
Tapestry needle for grafting panels of blanket together.
Warp Length
236 ends 8 yd long (includes floating selvedges; allows 24"; for take-up, 30"; for loom waste).
Setts
Warp: 12 epi (1/dent in a 12-dent reed).
Weft: 10 ppi.
Dimensions
Width in the reed: 19 8/12".
Woven length: (measured under tension on the loom) 234".
Finished size: (before washing and seaming) 18" x 214". Finished blanket size: 49”x 66” with 4” fringe.