Romanian Blanket, White-Brown Tartan, Surplus

Aah. Proper thick and warm tartan blankets from the Romanian army. Like all good things, these smell of sheep. So they still contain lanolin, that nature’s own wonder stuff. The calm color combo works well both on your couch and in the wilderness.

Use

Wool blankets are very versatile things both at home and in the forest. They give your home that nice rustic countryside charm. A cold and rainy autumn night, candles, you two (or three) under a sensual sheep-smelling blanket. How lovely!

In a chilly and wet forest a thick and warm blanket is your best friend. Wrap it around you and even a dying campfire won’t bring you down. Or curl inside it when you lay down to sleep.

Buckles and other spikes slip nicely through this fabric because it isn’t overly tightly woven. This makes it easy to make all sorts of bush capes, sleeping bags, and other neat bushcrafty stuff. You can also roll this into an improvised carrying system quite easily.

Sizing

These are nice and big, about 145 x 200 cm (57.1" x 78.7"). Comfy enough for a bit bigger folks and pleasantly huge for smaller. This is thick stuff, the blankets weigh c. 1.9 kilos (4.2 lbs). The measurements can vary a bit since these aren’t engineer-friendly blankets.

Materials and care

They are made from 70% wool and 30% Relon. The latter is some kind of an Eastern bloc space-age material, their answer to decadent western synthetics. The name sounds a lot more epic than Nylon, even though they are probably more or less similar. You gotta love the smell of sheep because then you know that the wool still has lanolin, i.e. sheep grease. Lanolin makes wool more water-repellent and resistant to dirt.

You don’t normally need to wash wool blankets, simply airing them out takes you quite far. If washing is absolutely necessary, do it at 40 degrees Celsius (104 F), shake, and hang to dry. Too hot temperatures will turn these into handkerchiefs.

Condition

Unissued Romanian military surplus. Maybe Romanian soldiers don’t like tartan or something.