Cilcennin Mill replica striped blankets Limited edition

These fabulous copies of a nineteenth Century blanket are taken directly from one of my precious collection of Cilcennin Mill carthenni.

 

A limited run comissioned by myself & woven on traditional broad looms at Drefach` Melin Teifi . The centre of Wool production for nearly a century . With the help & advice of Raymond Jones who has woven at the Mill for some 40 years . Formerly Cambrian Mill , it was bought by the National woollen Museum in 1974 .

 

These replica blankets are very dear to my heart & I am very pleased with the result .

 

Cilcennin Mill is my favourite Mill , just a stones throw from where I live in Ceredigion . Now converted to a dwelling there is little visual evidence of its past . Run as part of a 60 acre small holding it was the secondary income for the tenant farmer & weaver John Thomas , later for Ben Thomas too. Part of the Ty Mawr estate . With cloth fulled at Llanfair Clodogau , this little mill produced striped blankets & carthenni for a predominantly local & domestic market . A few drapers further South .

Striking striped patterns using vegetable dyes & later some Analine ones . Always on a narrow width loom .

 

This particular pattern was produced at the end of the Nineteenth Century  through to about 1910 & is recorded in the the day books held in The National archive in Aberystwyth. The original blanket was bought from Bessie Jones in Cilau Aeron who is the daughter of John Thomas & worked in the Mill as a young girl.

 

A simple weave & pattern , but one that for me at least , encapsulates the period . A utiliterian blanket with a little sparkle of colour . Woven for simple farming families that would bring fleece to the Thomas` Mill & order their carthenni , suiting cloth & socks . Bartering with some of their wool as payment & often with other goods & services too . For example ; a pound of butter or a days labouring . An expensive purchase for this time , it was often paid for "on the book" in installments .

 

This is Ceredigion social history , well made , honest craftsmanship that lasted until the 1950s. The end of Second world war & South Wales Mining demand for woollen goods all over , signifed the end for most of the woollen Mills in West Wales . There are now only two producers in the county.

 

With the introduction of the wool Marketing board in 1950 it is near enough impossible to buy commercially viable Welsh wool to weave anymore . But I am enormously proud that they are being woven in West Wales .

 

 

These blankets were originally woven on a narrow width loom in two pieces & sewn down the centre . To avoid future possible mistaken identity & the dillution of provenance , these are being woven on a broad loom of roughly the same age.

 

In Cream wool with narrow broken stripes in Scarlet & Indigo , Broader bands at the edges .

 

Measures 90" x 68" . Finished with a soft but flat nap and double sewn machined ends .