Blossoms of fire

I was doodling along last night, making a cherry blossom motif, and almost by accident found a pentagonal arrangement of the cherry blossoms that is quite pretty:

In this particular draft, the cherry blossoms would come out about 2″ wide – big enough to be seen, but not big enough to dominate.  So I like this.

The actual draft is different, of course.  I was just doodling, so this is a 24 block profile draft, and I can only get 22 blocks in diversified plain weave.  Nonetheless, I find this pleasing and will probably work a variation up as a sample.  (The final fabric will be in mottled flame colors, of course, after I scrunch-dye the fabric.)

The cotton chenille yarn should be dry tonight or tomorrow morning, which will allow me to wind the rest of the warp and start threading.  I’ve decided to try two types of weft: 1450 ypp cotton chenille, and a doubled strand of 3000 ypp rayon chenille.  I’d like to use the rayon chenille for the weft, because it’s glossier and will really make the cherry blossoms “pop”, but this bathrobe has to be able to stand up to occasional machine washing and tumble-drying (on “delicate” and “low”, of course), and I’m not sure whether rayon chenille will do that, even with a cotton chenille warp to help lock things down.  The fine weft will be 60/2 silk in either case.  I’m a little worried about differential shrinkage (cotton/rayon will shrink, silk won’t) but we’ll just have to see how the sample turns out after wet-finishing.

Update: I just finished doing up the draft in diversified plain weave.  Here’s a simulation of the fabric:

And here is the draft (click to view the full size version)

I think I have the draft right, but will have to check against my references.  And then weave it up, of course!