Swedish weaving throw finish

I made fairly good progress on the second half of the Swedish weaving. In spite of the safety pins, I clearly can't count, as I ended up with about 5cm more at one end between the hem and the end border. I decided it didn't matter on the bed, which is a king single.

I tried it on the bed to decide how to finish the edges. My original intention was to blanket stitch around the whole throw. But when I looked at the sides and the ends on the bed, I decided that the blanket stitching the sides would clash with the pattern.







I think, in retrospect, that a crocheted edge all around would have worked, but not blanket stitch.I also decided that the ends did need blanket stitching, but a closed, rather than open blanket stitch to reflect the points of the main design.


Having decided that, I set about finishing off the back. Although the aim in Swedish weaving is to use a thread long enough to go from one side to the other of the blanket (so some thread is 3.5 times the width of the throw!), there were a number of occasions where this didn't work out, and I was not flush with thread, so figured I could join threads using a technique I learned in a Naversom class late last year (still haven't finished my blog on that - but will get to it).

You leave two tails on the back, then stitch them together with  machine thread of a similar colour,   gently securing the joined threads to the back of the fabric. On such loose weave fabric it does need to be secured, or it will catch, but the technique seems to have worked fine. I finished the sides with a machine hem 4 threads wide.

For those interested, monks cloth is woven with 8 floats to the inch. Each 'float' has four threads and they are very loose, unlike huckaback, which is tight and has two threads to the float.

This photo, by the way, is taken using the clip-on attachment to my iPhone that Jim bought me for my birthday. It is an amazing micro lens, and also has a wide-angle and a fish-eye lens. Really simple to use and great quality.





I dug out my huck handtowel - made as my first school sewing project when I was 7 or 8 years old to compare. It was much used in my home when I was a child, so has quite a few stains.

The finished throw is now on the bed. I may one day decide to crochet around the whole edge, but for now it serves well as is.