How to Use a Traditional Navajo Blanket Loom
- 1). Attach the wrap dowels to the wrapping frame with strong twine. Your wrapping frame can be a rectangular frame or a pair of modified saw horses, but ensure that your wrapping frame is designed to keep your wrap dowels parallel as well as stationary. Mark the dowels every 1/8 inch, so you have a guide for spacing your wrap. The wrap is the vertical strand of your rug, which is hidden by the yarn. In Navajo rugs and blankets, the wrap is continuous and is not knotted or tied on the ends.
- 2). Tie one end of the wrap to one of the dowels and string it in an over-then-under manner, so that your wrap forms a "figure 8" on the frame. Continue wrapping until you have covered the width of your rug, and tie the wrap to the other dowel. Once your wrap is completed on the dowels, lace the selvedge cords at the ends. The selvage cord is yarn, which is tripled and spun, and then soaked in water and dried. The length of the selvedge cord should be three times the width of your rug.
- 3). Fold the selvedge cord in half to mark its center. Slide one end of it under the first wrap, and pull until half the cord passes through. Twill the cord once and slide the other end under the second wrap. Repeat until you have slid the cord under every wrap, while twisting once after every wrap. Tie off the cord with a square knot and repeat at the other end. Place another dowel against your wrap dowel, and sew every turn of the wrap to the outer dowel with string. Remove wrap dowels.
- 4). Tie one dowel to the bottom crosspiece of the loom and the other dowel to the suspended rod. Adjust the tension using the heavy twine. Fasten a round stick between the wraps on top, with odds on one side, evens on the other. This holds the yarns open. Insert the batten edgewise under this stick, drop it to the bottom, and turn it flat to open the shed for the weft to pass through. Pass the weft, and restore it to its proper position using first the reed-fork, and then by pressing the batten down firmly. Run the batten through alternate threads again, but in the opposite way this time. Continue weaving until the rug is completed.
- 5). Remove the rug from the frame, and pull out the dowels. Tie the end of the side selvages to the ends of the top and bottom selvages at the corners.
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