Tien Chiu

  • Home
  • About
    • Honors, Awards, and Publications
  • Online Teaching
  • Gallery
  • Essays
  • Book
  • Blog
  • Dye samples
You are here: Home / All blog posts / Finished panel
Previous post: Experiment
Next post: New knitting machine, new sample

September 30, 2011 by Tien Chiu

Finished panel

I painted the panel this morning, using an 0.5% solution of fiber-reactive dyes in various colors.  Here it is:

completed panel
completed panel

Here, by way of contrast, is what it looked like before painting:

woven panel, before painting with fiber-reactive dyes
woven panel, before painting with fiber-reactive dyes

It’s amazing how much white will “wash out” a color, isn’t it?

Anyway, I am still not happy with this panel.  The top half is okay, but the bottom half looks like a bad dye job.  And the results of my experiment are not encouraging:

results from knitting up striped blank
results from knitting up striped blank

What disturbs me here isn’t so much the striping as the consistency of the striping.  It’s very clearly inconsistent throughout the blank – so again, it will tend to look like a mistake, not something intentional.

All of which leads me to conclude that smooth, consistent color transitions are probably the easiest and best way to get consistency.  I have the feeling that minor color inconsistencies will give me interesting color variations anyway – and if there aren’t any, by all the myriad gods, I can put them there via dye painting, silkscreening, embroidery, or what have you.

So there.  (Nyah.)

Tomorrow morning I’m going to a guild meeting, and after that I’ll be headed over to Oakland, where a fellow who repairs knitting machines may sell me a more modern knitting machine to replace my semi-antique one.  Once I get back, I’ll probably use my new-to-me machine to knit another test blank, this time testing a smooth color gradation.  I have to do a test blank anyway to determine gauge on the machine, so might as well test the smooth color gradation while I’m at it!

Share this post!

  • Tweet
  • More
  • Email
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Print

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, dyeing, weaving Tagged With: autumn splendor, knitted blanks

Previous post: Experiment
Next post: New knitting machine, new sample

Comments

  1. Sue says

    October 1, 2011 at 12:55 pm

    Since you don’t love it, it could come live at my house. Seriously absolutely adore it!! We are always more critical of our accomplishments than most other people will ever be. It is gorgeous.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Information resources

  • Dye samples
    • Procion MX fiber-reactive dye samples on cotton
    • How to "read" the dye sample sets
    • Dye sample strategy - the "Cube" method
  • How-Tos
    • Dyeing and surface design
    • Weaving
    • Designing handwoven cloth
    • Sewing

Blog posts

  • All blog posts
    • food
      • chocolate
    • musings
    • textiles
      • dyeing
      • knitting
      • sewing
      • surface design
      • weaving
    • writing

Archives

Photos from my travels

  • Dye samples
    • Procion MX fiber-reactive dye samples on cotton
    • How to "read" the dye sample sets
    • Dye sample strategy - the "Cube" method
  • Travels
    • Thailand
    • Cambodia
    • Vietnam
    • Laos
    • India
    • Ghana
    • China

Travel Blog

Entertaining miscellanies

© Copyright 2016 Tien Chiu · All Rights Reserved ·

 

Loading Comments...