Upon completing the threading for this project I couldn't wait to get started weaving. I started with with the dark green chenille, but it just didn't look right. I emailed Madelyn Van Der Hoogt who had designed the blanket and published it in Handwoven in 1995, and she gave me some advice. The dark green chenille contrasted too sharply with the natural cotton warp. It just wasn't visually pleasing with all those white threads laying over the chenille weft. Searching online, I finally found some of the heavyweight natural color cotton chenille at I Love Yarn.
http://www.iloveyarn.com/ The owner said he would be able to send it in about a week, which turned into three weeks, but I was so relieved to find the right stuff, waiting was fine. So after some fits, lots of cutting out and starting over, the blanket is finally underway. There have been some problems with loose warp threads and broken warps on the right edge, but with almost 2000 ends, I expected some problems. There was one (yes, only 1) threading error and 1 sleying error. I finally found some instructions on-line to make a simple temple here
http://www.woolgatherers.com/id105.htm and that seems to have solved the fraying problem. The weaving is a little slow, four weft colors, and the chenille between each color means changing shuttles often. As a short person, weaving a wide piece can take longer because all the leaning from side to side is tiring. The first pic shows the blanket in progress with the little paperclip temple in the lower left corner, the other picture shows the first attempt that didn't work.
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