By Guest Blogger Charlene Scott
Resembling a twisted teardrop, the kidney-shaped paisley is of Iranian and Indian origin, but its western name derives from the town of Paisley, in central Scotland, a center for textiles where paisley designs were produced. Paisley is a term in England for a design using the boteh, a droplet-shaped vegetable motif of Persian or Indian origin. Such designs became very popular in the West in the 18th and 18th centuries, especially in the form of Kashmir shawls. The pattern is sometimes called "Persian pickles" by American traditionalists, especially quilt-makers, or "Welsh pears" in Welsh textiles as far back as 1888.
At the 2012 Rug School I took a course with Donna Gass on creating and using Paisley. So I spent a few days coming up with a design, drew it on the backing and went to school with the goal of colour planning the rug. By the end of the week I had a colour plan in mind and had redesigned the two end panels
In November, Mary Doig offered to help me further colour plan and dye for the project. Mary was a guest blogger a few months ago and talked about the process we went through to dye for this project.
I started hooking the first week of November and finished the whipping the third week of April. It has been a long, slow road and I have learned a lot in the process. I've discovered that you can have a plan firmly planted in your head at the start but that might not be the colours you end up wanting and using.
I have also learned that when hooking mirror images it is best to do them bit by bit at the same time. I did the first large Paisley completely and by the time I got to the second one, I found I had to rip it out several times until it more closely reflected the first.
Woman's prerogative and all, I learned that it is never too late to change your mind. The end panel design was changed a third time as the second change did not work for me. I learned that when using recycled wool you need to be aware of the consistency of how thick or thin it may be and of course, make sure you have enough. I was left with the equivalent of one strip of yellow for the background, which is why you don't see it used in the outside border. Talk about sweating bullets, that was too close for comfort.
Using these lessons, when I came to the end panels I hooked all the flowers before filling in the background so they would all be fairly uniform. It isn't noticable in the pictures but if you look closely at the rug, the dark colour which started out as eggplant on new wool, became more of a blue purple. As I ran out of the eggplant early, I used some dark purple I had on hand overdyed with eggplant. The shortage occurred as the colour placement evolved and I used much more of it than first envisioned.
And lastly, I learned to listen to friends and fellow rug hookers for advice. I had it in my head that I was going to whip the rug with a brown, a little darker than my outside rows. Everyone that I spoke to said no and I was told, "You don't have that colour in your rug so why introduce a new colour". Then it was unanimous that the whipping be in the eggplant colour. So once again I visited my friend Mary and she helped me dye a skein of yarn so I could complete the rug.
I am enrolled in the dye course at the Nova Scotia Guild Rug School in May for a greater understanding of the process and gain a bit of independence in the colour department. Thanks to Mary for the use of her dyes and time to make this rug the heirloom I hoped it would be.
In November, Mary Doig offered to help me further colour plan and dye for the project. Mary was a guest blogger a few months ago and talked about the process we went through to dye for this project.
I started hooking the first week of November and finished the whipping the third week of April. It has been a long, slow road and I have learned a lot in the process. I've discovered that you can have a plan firmly planted in your head at the start but that might not be the colours you end up wanting and using.
I have also learned that when hooking mirror images it is best to do them bit by bit at the same time. I did the first large Paisley completely and by the time I got to the second one, I found I had to rip it out several times until it more closely reflected the first.
Woman's prerogative and all, I learned that it is never too late to change your mind. The end panel design was changed a third time as the second change did not work for me. I learned that when using recycled wool you need to be aware of the consistency of how thick or thin it may be and of course, make sure you have enough. I was left with the equivalent of one strip of yellow for the background, which is why you don't see it used in the outside border. Talk about sweating bullets, that was too close for comfort.
Using these lessons, when I came to the end panels I hooked all the flowers before filling in the background so they would all be fairly uniform. It isn't noticable in the pictures but if you look closely at the rug, the dark colour which started out as eggplant on new wool, became more of a blue purple. As I ran out of the eggplant early, I used some dark purple I had on hand overdyed with eggplant. The shortage occurred as the colour placement evolved and I used much more of it than first envisioned.
And lastly, I learned to listen to friends and fellow rug hookers for advice. I had it in my head that I was going to whip the rug with a brown, a little darker than my outside rows. Everyone that I spoke to said no and I was told, "You don't have that colour in your rug so why introduce a new colour". Then it was unanimous that the whipping be in the eggplant colour. So once again I visited my friend Mary and she helped me dye a skein of yarn so I could complete the rug.
I am enrolled in the dye course at the Nova Scotia Guild Rug School in May for a greater understanding of the process and gain a bit of independence in the colour department. Thanks to Mary for the use of her dyes and time to make this rug the heirloom I hoped it would be.
The final dimensions of the rug are 47" x 34". It was hooked in every cut from 3 to 7.
  Wood hand stamp for block-printing traditional "paisley" designs, Isfahan, Iran |    |
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