Anne’s niece has recently had her second child, so I am racing to get this project finished and mailed. I’m following a design which I have made before. It used 4 colors of Vintage DK which I get from Yarn Barn of Kansas. Anne chose the colors which arrived quickly.

The skeins were converted to center fed balls prior to warping. I chose the color order of the stripes.

There are three repeats of these stripes in the blanket. With the same sequence in the weft for a checkerboard mix of colors. It also has a fringe all the way around the outside.

I’m weaving on ‘Big Mac’ which is another reason I am hurrying. I’ll need this loom for the 2026 Christmas towels. I have all the yarn for them but need this loom as it has the required 8 shafts.

Also underway was some further work on the hot tub. I know it’s not strictly fiber related, but as the hot tub is right behind the studio/workshop I can load up the fire then back in to the studio work so the jobs work in parallel. I have just made an improvement to the tub by adding some insulation around the outside. The last major upgrade was to put insulation underneath which helped with heat retention. The extra outside insulation has cut the amount of heat in half which means quicker re-heat and use further in to winter. Sadly is does take away the ‘wood’ look, but we can live with that.

Left to right is; the heat exchanger, the new insulation fitted, and the old look.

The blanket is now finished. Weaving was completed in a day, then once off the loom the fringes had to be trimmed up to be uniform (mostly) then each group of 4 was twisted and knotted. Finally it went through a gentle cycle in the washing machine and dried flat.