After successfully completing the Winter doublewidth blankets I planned twin doublewidth Summer blankets. This was not an easy task. The Huck Lace Summer blankets were woven with a 10/2 cotton warp and a 2/20 Donegal wool weft. I had 1680 ends. The sectional beaming, at 80 ends per 2 inch section was 42 inches wide. 500 additional heddles had to be ordered. A 20epi reed was double sleyed for the 42 inch width.

At the fold I sleyed single space for 7 ends, added slippery embroidery threads as "helpers" to keep the space. In additionI did not leave the helper threads in the blanket, as I wove I would carefully slip the threads out of the weaving every 5 inches and rewind them on a long pin to continue their task. The purpose of this was to eliminate having those helper threads pull and distort the warp and weft threads while I pulled them out of the full length of the finished blanket. I found this happening with my woolen Winter blankets. Another way I kept the fold from weaving too tightly was to place a firm cylinder of cotton at the point where the weft threads wrap around the fold. I gently pushed the cotton along the fold as I wove.

I began the blankets with plain weave, this allowed me to quickly see any errors in threading. The pattern had a 2 inch plain weave selvedge edge to avoid the rough selvedge so often found in weaving Huck Lace. The process of weaving was often frustrating. As I wove the top layer, I was unable to see what was happening underneath. I had placed a large mirror to the right of my loom so that I could see down the shed, this helped catch loose ends. I used a hand mirror to try to see what was happening on the lower width, this was not satisfactory. It wasn't until I had woven far enough so that the underside of the weaving began to show that I could see any mistakes beyond the selvedges. Too late to fix until off the loom but a reminder of what mistakes I had to look for.

 I placed a long smooth stick between the two layers and moved it periodically to see if the right side was still open or if some threads were crossed. One advantage of double weave is that if you make a mistake and throw a pick in the wrong sequence it often closes the side you want to stay open. This immediately signals the need to pull out a few picks to get back in sequence. Finding where I should start again with a complex Huck Lace pattern was sometimes a problem. In this pattern there were 100 picks for each motif. I would go back to my computer program and study the pattern and each pick number, find where I was and go back to my compu-dobby screen and match the number. Slow but accurate.

I was unable to use my auto-advance, the spacing between the top layer and the bottom layer did not close properly The threads were so tightly packed in the heddles and reed that when I advanced my weaving I had to push the shafts with my hand, then gently separate them to avoid their hanging up on each other. The mirror was very helpful here, if there was a hang up, the tangle of ends was very obvious. I wove slowly. When one blanket was completed I removed it, finished it to see if everything was correct and then wove the second blanket.
 

The finishing process consisted of a close study of the weaving for errors, needle weaving any skips and broken ends . . . the ends of the blankets were serged, the blankets washed in the washing machine in cool water for 10 minutes on delicate. Hung on the line outside to dry. Steam pressed and loose ends trimmed. The binding was sewn on top and bottom with a large zig zag stitch and the blankets were placed on the beds.
 

Width on the loom: 42" final width after finishing 74" (double width opened)

Length on the loom: 97" final length after finishing 88"

Colors: apple green warp, light tan weft

Pattern: my own