I just finished the third of the lilies and wanted to make some notes on the basic construction and silk.

One of the lilies was made with a three-ply, tightly twisted silk. It was very tiring to untwist and the spool only contained enough silk to make one lily. The other two were made with spun silk. I managed to make eight petals before I ran out of silk and had to get more in the same color. When I did get more (three weeks later) I wrapped up the last four petals. Because of the time delay I completely forgot that I did not untwist the single strand of floss on the first eight petals but I did untwist on the last four. I have one lily that contains petals done both ways. I mention this because there is very clearly a difference if you’re looking closely. The untwisted looks more like thread and is more reflective whereas the twisted has a softer, fluffier look to it. I am going to do an additional two lilies on the sheep vellum with the Trebizod filament silk. The orange blends nicely with the existing two shades and these are wrapping up so much faster.

I seem to be a little large on my scale. From the working standpoint there are pluses and minuses. On the plus size you get bigger, bolder looking flowers and they are a bit easier to handle when you are wrapping them. On the minus side is the sheer volume of silk it takes to make a flower and the fact that it takes longer to wrap and uses more supplies. I do not think there is a right or wrong size in a general way. I have enough silk to make a few shrines and so I’m not going to be concerned about that. I just wanted to record the differences.