Thought I'd post the inspiration for the waterlily tapestry. It began as a quick watercolor sketch I did last June when I was staying a few days at Sapphire.

I began weaving with blocks of color areas, using 6-strand cotton embroidery floss, two fold. I simply was using color seen in the pond as visual references--weaving squares, rectangles and other assorted shapes. I soon became stymied because I do so much love to work with my interpretation of "realism."

I decided I would make a cartoon from the sketch. I had no tracing paper with me but found the notebook paper I had along was thin enough to see through, if I held the both the watercolor sketch and the notebook paper up to the window to use the sunlight as a make-shift light box.

I stitched the notebook paper cartoon onto the back of the tapestry while weaving and referred to both the watercolor sketch and the real lily in the pond while I wove.


I used a dark blue/purple warp, set at about 12 epi. The tapestry was finished with a half-Damascus edge, so the warp shows at the very ends of the weaving. Because it's dark, though, it isn't distracting--or at least I don't think so!


I had a close encounter with a hummingbird one day as I was beginning the weaving that maybe I'll mention at another time--one hummingbird that almost became weft!