Monday, July 18, 2022

Fleur de lis

Sorry for disappearing for the last two months.  I got diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy in May, which means that half my face is paralyzed and drooping.  One of the problems is that my left eye doesn’t close all the way so I haven’t wanted to weave in case fibres/dust get into my eye.  But now my face is starting to get better and I’ve started weaving again.

Last month I had someone interested in one of our original drafts, the fleur de lis diversified plain weave pattern.  The pattern needs some tweaking so I decided to weave the pattern again to get it perfect.

I started from the pattern which Mom created to make table runners.  I pulled everything out of the stash that could be used for a table runner.  Diversified plain weave is a very hungry weave, it needs two types of threads, one thick and one thin in the same (or similar) colour for both the warp and the weft.  So it can be challenging to find yarn that works. 


I’m also trying to make a project guide to sell as a PDF on Etsy, so I also need to use yarns that you can currently buy.  I ended up ditching the table runner idea and going with a Tencel scarf.  The warp is 2/8 Tencel in white and white sewing thread.  It was very slow going to pull the warp with such a fine thread as sewing thread!

One of my favourite steps is trying the different weft options, in this case grey teal, Ming blue, blueberry and azure, all different blues.

The fleur de lis pattern is looking pretty good but I can see a few more tweaks are needed to make it perfect. The pattern can appear quite different when woven compared to how it looks on the computer.  

The colours and motif looked quite familiar then it dawned on me that my scarf is going to be similar to the flag for Quebec!

The garden is still struggling with the colder weather, it is definitely Feb-uly.  But plants are starting to bloom and the summer colours are starting to come into their summery best.

The tomatoes in the greenhouse are almost to the ceiling and laden with fruit, but nothing ripe yet, but the cucumbers in the back corner are the star right now and giving us a cucumber almost every day!

1 comment:

Peg Cherre said...

Oh dear! Sorry for your troubles, and glad to hear your health is improving. I am envious of that greenhouse!