what do the stripes on a hudson bay blanket mean
Hudson's Bay point blanket The short black lines woven into the blanket just above the bottom set of stripes are referred to as "points." About four inches in length (except in the case of half points, which are two inches), they indicate the finished overall size (area) of a blanket and allow a blanket's size to be easily determined while remaining folded. The "point" system was invented by French weavers in the mid-18th-century since then, as now, blankets were shrunk as part of the manufacturing process. The word point derives from the French empointer, meaning "to make threaded stitches on cloth." Although the company had been selling blankets since its founding in 1670, the first Hudson's Bay "pointed" blankets appeared in 1780.[4]