Tien Chiu

  • Home
  • About Tien
    • Honors, Awards, and Publications
  • Online Teaching
  • Gallery
  • Essays
  • Travels
  • Book
  • Blog
  • Dye samples
You are here: Home / All blog posts / Weaving exercises
Previous post: Sub-lactate long intervals did NOT go well
Next post: Cat in ICU, down at the vet

March 28, 2007 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

Weaving exercises

After a light spin (only 45 minutes in Zone 1-2!), I finished up my workout, took a shower, and went back to my weaving. I experimented with a couple twills – some with sections of plainweave, some skipping every other treadle, as Bonnie suggested in her book. It was fun to play with the different patterns, and quite soothing after a high-stress day at work. However, my twills were coming out elongated – I had sett the warp at 24 ends per inch, which was a bit too close together – there wasn’t quite enough room for the weft to go over-under over-under the warp in a nice relaxed manner, making the resulting fabric warp-faced (mostly warp showing). I thought about this for awhile, since I really didn’t want to give up the rhythm of the weaving to re-sley the reed at a different, wider sett.

Eventually I reached the obvious conclusion that, as much of a pain as it would be to re-sley the reed, it would be even stupider to go through the entire set of exercises at the wrong sett – not that I wouldn’t learn a lot about how to work with design in a warp-faced fabric, but that wasn’t really what I’d had in mind. So I cut off my initial work, took it off the loom, and re-sleyed the reed at 20 ends per inch. I’m hoping that this comes out better.

I actually enjoyed re-sleying the reed. I like creative work, but I also like precision handwork – it’s why I love working with fine threads. There’s a mindless joy that comes in working with your hands. It’s what I like about knitting, even complex pattern knitting. The reason I’ve never gotten into drawing or painting is that it’s simply not tactile enough to suit me – I like running things like silk and cashmere through my fingers and just enjoying the process.

The samples are coming out very nicely – the rough, relatively thick cotton shows up the pattern well. If I can just get it to a balanced weave (equal warp and weft showing), I’ll be a happy camper.

Sorry there have been relatively few posts of late – work has been pretty high-stress.  Hopefully it should abate in the next few weeks, though.

Share this post!

  • Tweet
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Discover more from Tien Chiu

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving

Previous post: Sub-lactate long intervals did NOT go well
Next post: Cat in ICU, down at the vet

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Archives

Tags

aids lifecycle outfits autumn splendor book cashmere coat cats celtic braid coat color study cross dyeing design design class devore doubleweave doubleweave shawls drawing dye samples dye study group gradient colors house infinite warp jacquard loom katazome knitted blanks kodachrome jacket ma's memorial mohair coat network drafted jacket/shawl project network drafting painted warp phoenix rising phoenix rising dress phoenix rising kimono phoenix rising reloaded pre-weavolution project sea turtles taquete tie-dye tied weaves tomatoes velvet weaving drafts web design website redesign wedding wedding dress woven shibori

Categories

  • Africa
  • aids lifecycle
  • All blog posts
  • All travel posts
  • Asia
  • Bangkok
  • Belize
  • Cambodia
  • Central America
  • Chai Ya (Wat Suon Mok)
  • Chiang Mai
  • Chiang Rai (Akha)
  • China
  • chocolate
  • computer stuff
  • creating craft
  • Creative works
  • cycling
  • Delhi
  • Dharamsala
  • drawing
  • dyeing
  • Fiber Arts
  • finished
  • food
  • garden
  • Ghana
  • Guatemala
  • Hanoi
  • Ho Chi Minh City
  • Hoi An
  • India
  • Khao Lak
  • Knitting
  • knitting
  • Ko Chang
  • Laos
  • Luang Namtha
  • Luang Prabang
  • markleeville death ride
  • meditations on craft
  • mental illness
  • musings
  • Phnom Penh
  • powerlifting
  • Rewalsar (Tso Pema)
  • sewing
  • Siem Reap (Angkor Wat)
  • Southeast Asia
  • surface design
  • textiles
  • Thailand
  • travel
  • Vangvieng
  • Vientiane
  • Vietnam
  • Warp & Weave
  • weaving
  • Weaving
  • weavolution
  • writing

© Copyright 2025 Tien Chiu · All Rights Reserved ·

%d