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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;2manybooks, post: 9773347, member: 8267&quot;]I think your identification of it as third phase is correct. </p><p><br /></p><p>The yarns appear to be fairly consistent in size. If handspun by a Navajo weaver, they should all be single ply. If the yarn feels soft and silky it would be consistent with the traditional churro wool that would have been used before the 1930s.</p><p><br /></p><p>There may be more dating clues in the colors. </p><p><img src="https://www.antiquers.com/attachments/img_9497-jpeg.482130/" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>The white/cream color is a natural wool color. The dark brown can also be natural, but may have been darkened with a dye - &quot;A deep brown color was much admired, and some brown wool may have been darkened with a dye made from a combination of three-leaved sumac (Rhus trilobata), pitch of the pinyon (Pinus edulis), and yellow ochre.&quot; [Anthony Berlant &amp; Mary Hunt Kahlenberg: <u>Walk in Beauty: The Navajo and Their Blankets]</u>. The gray/beige color is probably a mixture of white and brown wool spun together. </p><p><br /></p><p>There appears to be a blue dye, which would probably be indigo, available at least by the 1850s.</p><p><br /></p><p>The orange/red dye may be the most informative. Reds in the earlier blankets were obtained by unravelling the yarns from red flannel trade cloth. Spanish/Mexican flannel (&quot;bayeta&quot;) was dyed with cochineal, which was a redder color than American flannels which were dyed with synthetic dyes &quot;and therefore distinguishable from bayeta by the orange-red color produced by these dyes&quot; (ibid.). The synthetic red dyes became available (both in American flannel and as separate dye) during the 1870s. These early synthetic dyes were apt to bleed if wet, and easily faded.</p><p><br /></p><p>Based on what I can see in your photos, the orange/red yarns in your blanket look similar in size and texture to the natural color yarns. But the color is quite inconsistent. I suspect these yarns may be either American flannel that was unraveled, carded and respun, or yarn dyed by a Navajo weaver using a synthetic dye. Either way, it would indicate a possible date of mid-1870s or later.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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