I have described how the ends of the blanket are bordered with a stout three-ply string applied to the folds of the warp.  The lateral edges of the blanket are similarly protected by stout cords applied to the weft.  The way in which these are woven in, next demands our attention.  Two stout worsted cords, tied together, are firmly attached at each end of the cloth-beam just outside of the warp; they are then carried upwards and loosely tied to the yarn-beam or the supplementary yarn-beam.  Every time the weft is turned at the edge these two strings are twisted together and the weft is passed through the twist; thus one thread or strand of this border is always on the outside.  As it is constantly twisted in one direction, it is evident that, after a while, a counter-twist must form which would render the passage of the weft between the cords difficult, if the cords could not be untwisted again.  Here the object of tying these cords loosely to one of the upper beams, as before described, is displayed.  From time to time the cords are untied and the unwoven portion straightened as the work progresses.  Fig. 44 and Plate XXXVIII show these cords.  The coarse blankets do not have them. (Fig 42.)

Navajo blankets are single-ply, with designs the same on both sides, 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.