Le Tissier Designs

Of Larks and Linnets and Flying Fingers

Category: floral posies

  • Bonus Block – a Year of Colour

    Bonus Block – a Year of Colour

    August Blooms

    I am really missing my garden. And it is not that I am a serious gardener. I just plant and pray that things will grow. But I am a serious lover of gardens and enjoy them wholeheartedly.

    It took thirty years to develop the back yard in the old house and the last year of waiting for and then renovating the new place has not allowed time for really thinking about my outdoor space. That is about to change. The landscapers will be coming in about 3 weeks and I am so excited.

    So I have been thinking about gardens, in particular, my new garden, a great deal. I won’t be able to get the landscaping done all at once. It will take a few years to get the whole yard finished. But right now I have two things planned.

    1.) A small perennial garden for bees and other pollinators, with a small tree as a center focus. A Pink Dogwood – so pretty and delicate looking. Around it will be Coneflowers, Salvia, Russian Sage and Wooly Sunflower and something called Little Bunny, a small grass – which I had to look up. This garden will be in our small front yard, and will add privacy and interest.

    2.) I need to create a new herb garden. My old one was built by me, 30 years ago. I laid out the bricks in an old-fashioned square grid and filled each grid with different herbs and flowers. It was my favourite place in the yard. It delighted me and the bees both. I could and did sit out there for hours, knitting or reading.

    My new herb garden will be quite different. We live in a bit of a hollow with a long bank down one side of the property. The landscaper is going to build a rock wall along part of the bank and fill it with dirt to level out and create a garden area. I will share the results sometime in September.

    So our new garden won’t be like the old but it will have some wonderful things in it as well. It already has a beautiful rhodo and a gorgeous hydrangea on the front side of the bank. That area may get developed more next Spring.

    Gardens and garden themes have always been important to me. Quite a few of my patterns have been influenced by gardens. The August Bonus Square is the newest of my garden-inspired knits.

    August Bonus BlockDownload

    The pattern includes a photo tutorial of how to create the Daisy Chain stitch.

    The Daisy Chain stitch is a fun knit. A little fiddly but worth the payback as every 4 rows of the pattern creates almost an inch of fabric. It is also a great pattern for using up the bits of coloured yarn leftover from our other squares.

    I also think that interesting textural stitches like this are often overlooked. They can look more difficult than they really are. Or maybe we don’t want to think beyond what we always knit. I believe that sometimes we miss out when we don’t try those new things, those new stitches.

    Why Daisies? I have always loved daisies and all daisy-shaped flowers. Coneflowers, Lion Daisies and the lovely little English Daisies that grow wild amongst the grasses. Daisies and pansies (my other favourite flowers) were the flowers in my wedding bouquet. These flowers have faces and can come in so many different colours. And it is August, and I am missing my garden and so I unearthed the Daisy Chain Stitch. It just made sense to play with them in this square.

    I have used it a couple of times before. In a little hat for the purple hat campaign, Daisy Chain Cap. It made such a cute child’s cap. The other pattern is a shawl pattern, Peace, Love and Understanding.

    Happy Knitting

    Lynette

  • Embracing Granny Chic: A Cozy Home Makeover Journey

    Embracing Granny Chic: A Cozy Home Makeover Journey

    First and foremost, I am getting too old to live out of boxed and canned foods! And who knew that eating out all the time wasn’t fun!

    I have also been dealing with the “cold”, you know the one that won’t go away. I took the last week off of work in order to power through some knitting. That didn’t happen.

    I was too busy power napping – trying to get rid of the cold. It is slowly going. Have you had the “cold”? Or a cold for that matter. What is your favourite remedy? Mine is hot honey and lemon or tea or both. LOL!

    We are now entering week 4 or is it, 4.5 of the renovation and great progress has been made. I cannot say enough good things about MJ Chaley Construction and their crew.

    Progress to date:

    • my woolroom has a door (no change here) – but is now storage for the crews “stuff”.
      • this room is now looking like it is going to be finished last, it is too useful right now
    • the main bathroom/laundry, has been gutted, and in the bathroom
      • the electrical has been upgraded,
      • the plumbing has been upgraded
        • including adding a whole house shutoff valve for the water
      • and the ceiling and walls have been drywalled and painted!
        • the shower stall has been installed
        • and the new cabinet is here, but not installed
    • the kitchen area is so exciting
      • the skylight has been replaced and the beams and surrounding area have been upgraded with new venting and insulation
      • as have the outside walls
      • the entire kitchen has been rewired to accommodate the undercounter lighting and new appliance placements
        • including wiring being run to power the kitchen island
      • the plumbing has upgraded for the sink, we did not change the location of the sink
      • the kicks are in for the new cupboards
    • the main living area is ready for paint, both walls and ceiling
      • and ready for new trim around windows, doors and floors
    from the kitchen area to the main outside door.
    the bathroom and laundry area
    down the hallway to the back bedroom
    the kitchen with kicks and skylight. The grandfather clock won’t be staying there.

    Tomorrow the new flooring is going in.

    On Aesthetics

    There is a movement in design, especially in our homes, towards the homey and cozy. “Granny Chic” I think it is called. I have embraced this style my whole life. The combination of modern and old, of walls busy with art and family photographs. I carry my life in my home. So did my Mum!

    We lived with floral wall paper, usually very Victorian in nature. Lots of floral inspired wallpapers and pictures, antique pictures and my mothers needle pointed floral pictures. I simply followed her lead and kept my own home just like hers.

    I had this work reframed just after we moved. The old frame was falling apart at one corner. It is now waiting for a wall. My mums’ last piece of needlepoint.

    It is odd to find that now those are the homes that we are moving too naturally. I am going to be in style for the first time in my life!

    give me flowers, especially Pansies, they always make me happy
    a case full of china florals, very Granny Chic! LOL!

    I try to surround myself with Happy. That is really my aesthetic.

    I am choosing be a little naive – but I think that we quite often make our happiness.  It is how we view the world – half empty or half full. It is how we view the people in our world and how the world views us. I don’t put much stock into the stuff the world says that we need to have to be happy.

    I put stock into the people that are in my life.  Those are the people in my home and at my job. They are also the people I meet as I go about my day.

    Knitting is one of the activities that gives me my greatest joy and happiness.  Planning the next project or playing with the new yarn – I am always creating and dreaming.  When we find out what we love, happiness is usually close by. It shows us what we want to do with our time.

    More Granny Chic – the Granny Blanket

    Well, the swatch is complete. But I have no washing machine to full it in. So it will have to wait another week or so.

    It is approx 38 inches across. I want it to shrink at least 25% in the fulling process. That would make it approx 29 inches across. I am practicing patience. And using it to cozy up in as I watch tv in the evenings. The crew left us the tv console an couch to live with.

    Loose sewing at the join to allow for shrinkage
    a loosely woven center or loose single crochet would also work to fill the center. it must be loose to allow for shrinkage
    The swatch is complete. It is almost blanket size. I am going to be knitting a very big blanket before fulling for the real deal!

    I am ready for next Sunday, March 1. Well, almost. The Square and pattern are ready. However, I am still working on the “fancy.” I am having too much fun.

    Happy Knitting

    Lynette

  • A New Year – New Resolve!? Maybe!

    A New Year – New Resolve!? Maybe!

    I Resolve that: 

    This is going to be the year of flowers. Floral motifs in my knitting – you bet! Flowers on my walls – always – courtesy of my mum! Flowers in the garden – we will see how green my thumb gets! 

    And flowers on my shelves!

    Pansies and Florals – Oh My!

    I am a collector – yarn (of course) – vintage knitting books – knitting books – yarn (did I mention yarn) and antiques.

    The antiques are mostly the small stuff. Silver things, porcelain posies, china and other small things.

    Many know about my small obsessions and every now and then I am asked if I would like some more items for my collection. Mostly my flower collection. It was their mothers or their grandmothers and really they have no use for, need of, or interest in them. And I get it, we all have our hobbies. And I on the other hand love all the things that mothers and grandmothers loved in their day. Especially the floral posies, in all my years of collecting I have not a single double, or repeat of a flower not even ones that are close. 

    Each pot is different, each flower is different. Certainly they are all the common flowers, roses, peonies, pansies, anemones, tulips or trilliums. But each one is hand made, hand coloured, and just like nature, each flower is totally unique from every other flower. Some flowers come with birds on stems, perching on a nest, or about to take flight. Some flowers come in silver vases – those are perhaps my favourites!

    I think that the fact that human hands formed each flower, placed each flower in the pot and a human mind chose the colours of glaze to finish each bloom, is what fascinates me about these china posies. Some of the older posies are true works of art, holding a moment in time as the breeze moves the flowers about.

    Posies are delicate, easily chipped along the edges of petal and leaf. Petals and leaves also break in half and are often poorly glued back together, again human hands trying to preserve something that they loved and valued. I find the love of flowers such a human thing, something that many of us share in so many ways.

    The posies I collect also go well with the many petit point bouquets that I have on my walls and shelves. All lovingly created by my Mother. She spent hours working on each piece. Somehow many of her floral pieces came my way.

    My Mothers work – she even refinished the frame to complement the work.

    I will most likely have to divest myself of some of the “things” I collect. We all usually have to “downsize” at some point in our lives. Until that time arrives, I will enjoy them, celebrate them and share that love!

    So do you collect? Have you got a stash of something special that means a lot to you? I would love to hear about it.

    Happy New Year, Happy Collecting, Happy Knitting

    Be well,

    Lynette