Introduction:
A friend mentioned she is thinking of moving to a smaller place. I asked: “What about George’s blanket?” I noticed it years ago when it covered his bed—a gorgeous handwoven textile made with handspun goat hair(?). She called back to say she found it but the “moths had gotten to it”. I told her I’d like to have it and would put it in my freezer. Just fragments of it would be enough for me. Today was the first I could get a look at it after the freezer treatment to kill any moths and eggs. Now I need help in what to do next.
The blanket came from Elazig, Turkey, a village in Eastern Anatolia. All the women wore shawls similar to this blanket according to my friend.
I hope you can see that this is a beautiful textile. It is hand spun and handwoven of fine, singles threads at about 30 warps and wefts per inch. The goat hair makes it a little coarse but soft. It is very light weight and supple. I want to enjoy it but what should I do? Cut the good parts out and make a collage of them? Back the whole thing with a cloth and keep it intact? I would like any suggestions. I really don’t want to keep it in the large piece, I want to be able to look at the lovely fabric up close.
There is slight tracking of the plain weave—letting you know the warps and wefts were fine singles yarns. (To avoid tracking, one could weave twill or have the cloth dry cleaned. Jim Ahrens said it’s the water in washing that make the tracking in plain weave.)
I put it in the freezer for two days, then out for two days, and finally 2 more days in the freezer to kill the moth larvae and eggs. Thankfully I didn’t see any live larvae but I didn’t look inside the package.
There were white moth casings scattered all over the blanket. I spent an hour picking them off today after I’d opened the package.
Holes, holes, holes, large and small. The blanket had been folded so they just ate through the layers in places