Slumber snugly

Press, 26 April 1979, Page 15

Slumber snugly

Blankets are no longer just a bread and butter item, fashion has stepped in.

Today’s pure wool blankets come in a wide range of colours. There are shades from paie lavender to deep purple, pastel pink to a deep bronzed rose, frosty apricot to brilliant orange, ice blue to peacock — there’s a blanket colour to complement any colour scheme an imaginative home decorator can dream up. Pasteis are still prime favourties, but the subtle secondary and tertiary colours are also beautiful and checks combining several tonings are popular. In a Woolmark blanket these unusual colours will stand up to light and laundering just as well as the old-time plain natural white. A high standard of light fastness is among the specifications for the Woolmark.

Other requirements for the Woolmark include mot h-proofing. When extra blankets are stored during summer, this is an important quality to be kept in mind bv those buying blankets. All Woolmark blankets are mothproofed. In addition, they must have considerable strength, enough to withstand a minimum pull of 30 lb in any direction, and have a maximum relaxation shrinkage of no more than five per cent. With the growing popularity of centrally-heated homes and electric blankets on the beds, some people prefer cellular blankets to the solidly woven variety, because they are light without losing any of the w r armth that is inherent in a pure wool blanket. The colours available in cellular blankets are identical with those available in the regular variety.

Wool has been the traditional fibre used for blankets from time immemorial, and even with today’s multiplicity of

fibres available to manufacturers, nothing has superseded wool as the perfect fibre for blankets. A wool fibre is not just a simple hair. It consists of an outer layer of interlocking scales arranged like the scales on a fish. Under this flexible outer layer is an inner core like a little cable of tough cells of great strength. In addition, the three-di-mensional crimp that is a characteristic of wool,

keeps the fibres wc-I apart. They simply canno be squashed down flat. A: is trapped among th fibres of wool fabrics, in sulating against both hea and cold.

A final note about blan kets — the bad old days when hems unravelled are behind us. Today, blankets are either bound with satin or have blanket stitched edges that feature a locked stitch that cannot unravel.