Pendleton Wool Blanket

A Pendleton wool blanket I found at a thrift store for $30 now hangs over the back of the couch in my apartment, and the room would feel incomplete without it. Weaving wool blankets in their Oregon mills since 1863, Pendleton has a long history. Geometric bands in deep reds, blacks, and creams, the patterns were originally designed in collaboration with Native American communities for the trade blanket market. Dense enough that it works as both decoration and actual warmth, the wool creates a grounding pressure when you have it on your lap that thin fleece blankets can't match. Mine is the Glacier Park stripe, white with bands of green, red, yellow, and black, and the colors have not faded despite what appears to be decades of use before I found it. Brand heritage is complicated because the trade blanket history involves colonial commerce. Pendleton has navigated that tension by maintaining relationships with tribal communities and donating a portion of blanket sales to the American Indian College Fund. Comparing it to a synthetic throw I bought for $15 is where the quality most. Pendleton has a hand, a texture and resistance when you fold it, that the synthetic version lacks completely.