After many months of cruising paint chip colors and weaving magazines for ideas, Roxy came up with the idea to paint the warp in an Northern lights pattern. So Connie and Roxy threaded the warp through two reeds and stretched it out on plastic shower curtains to paint. Jacquard Acid dyes was used with a sponge applicator.

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Once done, the problem of setting the Jacquard dyes before weaving came to mind. Not wanting to jumble the design we could not remove the warp from the reed and steam it or microwave it. So we tried the old steam iron trick. This was too tedious and doubtful if it would set the dyes. What to do???

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Melinda had Cheri’s old electric roaster oven so we used it as our steam cauldron and drew the warp over racks above the roaster giving each foot of warp a fifteen minute steaming. A folding wooden clothes rack was used to drape the steamed warp over as it came off the roasting rack.

Now to dress the loom. Cheri was visiting Melinda's, so put her to work. Since the warp was already in a 12 dent reed (12 e.p.i.), a simple straight draw was threaded in the heddles on 4 shafts.

Front View	Back View
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We tested different colors of weft to see other possibilities. The best choice is shown. To be able to weave the majority of the dyed warp, we had to tie onto the breast beam in a different manner. It played havoc in correcting twisted threads behind reed, or around a heddle, but it was worth the effort. As we saved the majority of the color to be woven. To align fibers, sent 4 shots of cotton across the warp. Then decided to do twining versus other options as a finished edge. As you can see in the pictures below. One row of twining was not enough, but doing 2 rows made a firm and pretty finished edge.

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Then the weaving begins. A balanced weave of 2/1 twill at 12 p.p.i. Every six inches switched directions on the 2/1 twill. Finished the end with two rows of twining.

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The fringe was intended to be sown back into the blanket but it did not look good. So after washing and drying it, cut the fringe short, just shy of an inch. Wrapped it up and presented the blanket to Kyra, who so beautifully presents the blanket in the following pictures.

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Thanks Roxy, Connie, Cheri and Melinda for sharing your project on the Alaskan Fiber Arts web site!