95 heddles too few....

I got to thinking about this blanket for mom and the incredible amount of heddles I will need for 30 ends per inch all the way across the whole loom.  With a 25.5" reed and 30 epi, I will need 765 heddles to cover that space.  That's a lot of heddles.  On the 4-shaft I have 660, so I would either have to take some from the 8-shaft or just simply weave it on the 8-shaft.  I'm going with the 2nd option.  Also, I still have Bertha Gray Hayes potholders still on my 4-shaft, so it's getting a little backed-up over here!

Anyway, back to the conversions from 4 to 8-shafts.  The next trick was to figure out how to turn the 4-shaft pattern into an 8-shaft design.  I tried very large M-W rotations using all 8 heddles, but it wasn't even the same pattern.  Then it occurred to me that I read somewhere in a book that an 8-shaft threading is like 1-2-3-4 & 1-2-3-4.  So once I divided the threading and treadling that way, I ended up with the same pattern:

So using this 8-shaft method, I will need 70 heddles on shafts 1, 4, 5, & 8; 105 heddles on shafts 2 & 7; and 140 shafts on heddles 3 & 6.  I think the 8-shaft can handle that, but I will count shafts 2 & 7 just to be safe!  I hate adding heddles during threading.  It just isn't much fun at all!

I'm going to put the sage green as the warp because my mom likes it best.  This way the fringe will be the green color.  I haven't decided on a small border around the piece yet.  Maybe I'll repeat the pattern a few times in one spot at the beginning and the sides just to make it a little bit different around the whole piece.  And maybe I'll just weave up to the edges.... I'll have to think about this a bit.

OK- off to the warp board!