no matter how elaborate these designs may be. To produce their
varigated patterns they have a separate skein, shuttle, or thread for
each component of the pattern. Take, for instance, the blanket
depicted in Fig. 49. Across this blanket, between the points _a--b_,
we have two serrated borders, two white spaces, a small diamond in the
center, and twenty-four serrated stripes, making in all twenty-nine
component parts of the pattern. Now, when the weaver was working in
this place, twenty-nine different threads of weft might have been seen
hanging from the face of the web at one time. In the girth pictured in
Fig. 44 five different threads of woof are shown depending from the
loom.

[Illustration: FIG. 44.--Weaving of saddle-girth.]

When the web is so nearly finished that the batten can no longer be
inserted in the warp, slender rods are placed in the shed, while the
weft is passed with increased difficulty on the end of a delicate
splinter and the reed-fork alone presses the warp home. Later it
becomes necessary to remove even the rod and the shed; then the
alternate threads are separated by a slender stick worked in tediously
between them, and two threads of woof are inserted--one above and the
other below the stick. The very last thread is sometimes put in with a
darning needle. The weaving of the last three inches requires more
labor than any foot of the previous work.

In Figs. 49, 50, 51, 52, and 53 it will be seen that there are small
fringes or tassels at the corners of the blankets; these are made of
the redundant ends of the four border-cords (_i.e._, the portions of
the cord by which they were tied to the beams), either simply tied
together or secured in the web with a few stitches.