Navajo Classic Moki Wearing Blanket

Navajo

Wool | Item 174

This is an early moki wearing blanket, circa 1860 and possibly as early as 1840. This blanket is finely woven with a wonderful, thin handle. There are 11 warps to the inch and 64 wefts to the inch. The wool is from churro sheep, and the age of the surface creates a beautiful sheen. The body of the blanket is woven with hand spun wool in natural brown, white and white dyed with deep indigo blue. The weft selvage is made of two, 3-ply cords, the indigo being hand spun and the red being cochineal dyed saxony. The warp selvage is a lighter indigo blue, with two cords each 3 ply. There are remnants of saxony corner tassels. The blanket is divided into 6 main parts, then each of these 6 are broken into 2 parts for a total of 12 sections. The separation of all these bands is with white weft used in a ticking pattern, or beading, which allows for the integration of the thin, white bands into the adjacent brown bands. These ticking white borders very with each separation, making for interesting variations within the blanket field. There are sectional lines, but they are very fine and hard to find.