In today’s blogpost, I will talk about the weaving of a baby blanket that I made on my rigid heddle loom. I really love this project because I have done an intricate pattern using two pickup sticks. For a long time, I had this idea for a pattern in my mind and I was so glad to finally make it happen. I guess, I felt like a writer who has and idea in their head and can’t wait to write it down! I hope you will also enjoy this weaving of a baby blanket with pickup sticks.

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I have made two videos about this project. This present blogpost is made as a complementary tool for the videos. I highly suggest watching both videos to fully understand my instructions. In the first video, I talk about the warping and I introduce the pickup stick pattern.

In this second video, I continue explaining the pickup stick pattern and I finish the weaving of the blanket. I also give some additional information about using pickup sticks in a project.

For this project, I’m using Lion Brand’s yarn from their Truboo collection. The yarn is actually made of 100% rayon from Bamboo. I chose this yarn because it has such a nice shine to it. It is also so soft to the touch that I believe it’s just appropriate for a baby blanket. It’s considered a size 3 (light). I used 3 different colors to make the project:

-1 ball of Mauve (purple)

-1 ball of Silver (light grey)

-3 balls of Slate (dark grey)

Here’s where you can get the same yarn: https://shrsl.com/3yk0g

I used my 80cm (32”) rigid heddle loom to make this project. I warped the whole width of my loom, which means exactly 80cm (32”). Since that the yarn is a size 3 (light), I decided to use my 10 DPI heddle for the project.

I also used two pickup sticks that were a little bit wider than my loom. If you are in need of pickup sticks, The Woolery has them in all different shapes and sizes. Here’s the link: https://woolery.com/weaving/weaving-tools/needles-swords-pick-up-sticks.html?page_num=2&aff=214

For the overall pattern of the project, I was going for something similar to a Buffalo plaid. This means that I divided my heddle into 5 equal sections. All sections were composed of 64 threads, which means that I had 32 threads in the slots and 32 threads in the holes of each section. Also, each section measured about 16cm.

Because of the way that the heddle is made, after that I had put a thread in each dent, the last section ended up with actually only 63 threads. To solve this problem, I had to add an extra thread that was outside of the heddle. This thread would then act as a slot thread.

One way to do add this thread while warping would simply be to pull one more loop in the last slot of the heddle. When it would be time to thread the heddle, we could put one thread of this loop in the last eye of the heddle and the other one on the side of the heddle. It might sound counter intuitive to put a thread outside of the heddle, but I swear it works and this thread is not in the way as we weave.

Here’s the sequence of the colors in the warp for each section:

-64 threads of slate (dark grey)

-64 threads of mauve (purple)

-64 threads of slate (dark grey)

-64 threads of silver (light grey)

-64 threads of slate (dark grey)

As I mentioned before, the pattern is inspired by Buffalo plaid. This means that I will be repeating the sequence of colors found in the warp into the weft. Still, I need to say that I did not follow it in a way that it would be identical. Here’s the exact order of the color sections that I wove in the weft:

-Slate (dark grey)

-Mauve (purple)

-Slate (dark grey)

-Silver (light grey)

-Slate (dark grey)

-Mauve (purple)

-Slate (dark grey)

This means that there were 4 sections of slate, 2 sections of mauve and 1 section of silver. Each section measured about 14cm (5,5”). They are all woven the same, except for the first one and the last one because I had to add two picks for the hemstitching. This will be explained later when I will talk about the pickup stick pattern.

As I mentioned before, I’m using 2 different pickup sticks to create the pattern of this blanket. When we use pickup sticks, we deliberately create floats into our handwoven fabric. For this project, I wanted those floats to look like there were framed. This is why I intentionally created a border of plain weave all around the pickup stick pattern.

I moved my pickup sticks around quite a lot during the project. Still, while weaving a given section of color, the first pickup stick always stayed on the loom and the second came in and out. This helped having a little bit less manipulation.  

For the weaving of the first section, I started with the slate. I first wove 7 normal picks. Two of them were used for my hemstitch while the 5 others acted as my plain weave border.

Then, I inserted the pickup stick. To do so, I put my heddle into the down position. I only picked up threads that were on the top of the shed created. In other words, I only picked up threads that were in the slots. For this first part of the pattern, I also only picked up threads that were in the slate parts of the warp. This means, only the threads that were on both side of the blanket and in the middle section. In other words, I did not pick up threads in the mauve nor the silver sections of the warp.

For my first pickup stick pattern, I skipped two threads, then picked up the next one, skipped two and picked up the next one and so on. In each section, the two last threads should be skipped. There should also be exactly 10 threads that were picked up by the stick in each section since that all sections have the same number of threads.

Then, I put my heddle into the up position and I slid the pickup stick behind it. This means that the threads that we are picked up were being lifted. I could then weave my pick. After that, I slid the pickup stick to the back of the loom. I then wove 5 normal picks.

Then, it was time to weave the second pickup stick pattern. To do so, I needed to insert the second pickup stick on my loom. I decided to insert it in front of my heddle because I find it easier this way.

Here again, I put my heddle into the down position. With this second pickup stick, I wished to pick up all the threads that weren’t picked up by the first stick. To help me do so, I slid the first pickup stick closer to the heddle. This had for effect to highlight which threads had already been picked up and which threads had not.

Then, I skipped the 2 first threads of the warp. Those threads will act as a border and I do not want to pick them up. I also skipped the next thread because this one was picked up by the first stick. Then, I picked up the next two threads. I skipped the following thread and I picked the next 2 others. This means that I skipped one, picked up 2, skipped 1, picked up 2 and so on. In total, 18 threads should be picked up. At the end of the section, there should be 3 threads that are not picked up, just like at the beginning of the section. I repeated this pattern for all three sections of slate.

After that, I slid the first pickup stick back to the back of the loom. I put my heddle into the up position and I pushed the second pickup stick closer to the heddle. This created a nice shed and I was then able to throw my shuttle in. However, in order to beat, I needed to take the pickup stick out. Then, it was back to weaving 5 normal picks.

In total, I did the first pickup stick repeat 4 times and the second pick up stick repeat 3 times. This means that I started with the first stick pattern and I ended with it as well. I did this same repeat in all sections of the weft. Here’s the pattern:

-6 normal picks (for the first section, I wove 7 picks. Two of them were used in the hemstitch. It still looked balanced)

-1^st pickup stick pattern

-5 normal picks

-2^nd pickup stick pattern

-5 normal picks

-1^st pickup stick pattern

-5 normal picks

-2^nd pickup stick pattern

-5 normal picks

-1^st pickup stick pattern

-5 normal picks

-2^nd pickup stick pattern

-5 normal picks

-1^st pickup stick pattern

-5 normal picks (for the very last section of the weft, I wove 7 picks. Two of them were used in the hemstitch)

And then it was time to move on to the next color which was mauve.

Both the mauve and the silver sections of the weft were woven the same way. As I mentioned before, I also repeated the exact same pickup stick pattern that I did the slate section, but this time only in their section of the warp. In other words, I took out the first pickup stick from behind the loom and I insert it again, but this time only in the mauve and the silver sections. I followed the exact same order for picking up the threads and the exact same sequence for weaving.

During the project, when I was done weaving with either of those color, I yet again took out the pickup stick from the back and inserted it into the slate sections of the warp. Then I would weave the exact same repeat, but this time with slate.

This whole putting the pickup sticks in and out of the project can be tedious. Still, since that the yarn is quite big and that I wove quite a few picks of plain weave, I found that it really wasn’t that time consuming.

For the wet finishing, I let the blanket soaked in cold water with vinegar in order to fix the colors. Then, I decided to wash it into the washing machine with cold water again and on the delicate cycle. Even though I like to handwash my garments, I figured that the parents to whom I will give this baby blanket will not have time to handwash it! This is why I thought it would make more sense to machine wash it and see it react in its real future environment.

To be completely honest, I was surprised by the outcome of the project! For some reason, I thought that the yarn would shrink a lot and that the blanket would get stiffer. However, after wet finishing, the blanket came out about the same dimensions as when it got off the loom.  This means that the dimension of the final blanket are 1m05 (41”) long and 73cm (29”) wide. The blanket also has a lot of drape! Way more than what I expected. I do not dislike it, it’s really just that it’s not what I had in mind in terms of texture. I have also left short fringes of about 2.5cm (1”).

Still, in terms of pattern, this is exactly what I had envisioned. I believe that this is my favorite baby blanket pattern so far. I’m already thinking about weaving it again, but this time with other yarns, just to see how it would turn out. H

Here I’m leaving you with a picture of what this baby blanket looks like from behind. The pickup sticks pattern created warp floats on one side and weft floats on the other. This give a different look on both side and I really enjoy it!