Our visit to Bernard Oriol , the weaver

Berard Oriol lives in Pélussin, a village in the regional parc of Pilat. 

This region  between St Etienne and Lyon was famous for the silk production. The twining mills in Pélussin were known by the high quality of their work. IN 1850 there were more than 16000 mulberry-trees in the village and more than 2000 people worked in the twining mills. 

The parents of Bernard Oriol, started their own mill about 50 years ago, they bought second hand machines and started weaving. Bernard grew up in this work room, which is next to his house. 

At the moment his mill is the last and only weaving mill left in Pélussin.......

These silk threads were put in the needles by hand......

With this machine he measured the fabric and at the same time it was folded, quite a miracle this machine

in some corners it there was quite a mess.....

I hope we can visit him again next year. 

Ecoprint scarfs for the Christmas market

The Christmas market is already on the 13th of december. I need to finish some small things and then I am ready. I am really proud of the things I made this year!
Th scarfs that I show you today are printed with eucalyptus leaves and some other leaves.  I made ten in all. They are 2 meter long and 40 cm wide and made with a wool/silk blend that i bought in a small weaving mill near St Etienne.
I already bought several times by telephone, the old weaver does not have a computer. Some weeks ago my friend Lucienne and her husband , we went to visit the weaver, such an extraordinary experience. We made lots of photoos, i'll show them soon.

Eco bundles and some champagne

With my friends Brigitte and Lucienne, we made some ecobundles. After two weeks of waiting we organized a 'party' to open our treasures.
Weather was still beautiful so we could do it outside in Brigitte's garden.

Our bundles

We started picking figs, the tree gave kilo's and kilo's this year, we picked the last ones....

And then surprise, surprise

Lucienne was happy with her silk scarf. I was not completely satisfied because the iron had colored the silk too dark.

 Detail of another scarf

And then , there was champagne........

La France est en deuil

la France est en deuil, nous sommes en deuil.........

I was in Felletin

This year I went, like last year, to Felletin for La Journée de la laine (the day of the yarn).
in the morning I followed a workshop in crochet free form .
We made a brooch and arrived at home  immediately I made two more.
There was a lot of yarnbombing in the village, i especially loved the  idea of using  cardboard boxes to make  heads, so easy peasy and so cute.

I bought yarn to make this shawl, a pattern from Stephen West. The yarn is silk&wool from Bart & Francis.