Color Blanket

At the time this color blanket was woven, the American Woolen Company was at the height of its productivity, producing enormous quantities of wool twills for men’s and women’s fashions. As a tool used by textile mills in the development of a color palette, this blanket shows the incredibly broad range of colors under consideration for production. The blanket is woven in two pieces: the larger crosses fifty-four different warp configurations with fourteen wefts, resulting in 308 differently colored samples. The smaller crosses thirty-two warps with 3 wefts, giving 96 additional options. Normally, the selected colors would be cut from the blanket and returned to the mill for production. This blanket remains intact as an important demonstration of the process of color development.
Color blankets are of particular interest to Cooper Hewitt because teh reveal the process of developoing a color palette for production, demonstrate the complex interaction between color and weave structure, and provide a more visually dynamic was to exhibit solid-color fabrics.

Color Blanket; Manufactured by American Woolen Company; wool, acetate; H x W: 184.2 × 149.9 cm (6 ft. 1/2 in. × 59 in.); American Textile History Museum Collection, gift of Clif Lund-Rollins; 2016-35-84