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Previous post: Trying to relax
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December 18, 2011 by Tien Chiu

Major setback

I spent three hours today dyeing the blanks for the dark panels – mixing up dyestocks, then mixing seventeen colors from dyestocks, and then carefully painting each blank with a graduated mixture of the seventeen colors.  I set the colors in the microwave, let it cool completely, and then rinsed out in cool water.  I set them aside to dry, and  turned my attention to the lighter panels, which I had dyed the same laborious way yesterday.  I started winding the first panel’s worth onto pirns, and noticed….

…there was more brown than there should have been.  A LOT more.

In fact, there was a lot more yarn than there should have been…had I made a mistake in my calculations?

I kept winding.  I’ve done six of these panels so far, so I know that the weft for one panel fills exactly 4 pirns.  On the third pirn I knew I was in trouble, and I finally gave up winding halfway through the  fifth pirn, with several yards of blank left to go.  I’d clearly made some sort of error, rendering the four blanks I had spent the past week making, well, useless.

I said some bad words, then some more bad words.  Then I got up, went over to my carefully hoarded stash of chocolates, and ate a chocolate-covered jasmine caramel.  (This, you understand, is why I’m a good project manager: quick, decisive action in the face of disaster.)  Thus fortified, I proceeded to figure out what had happened.

It turned out to be a problem with my notes.  I had somehow managed to write down “114 needles” when I really meant “70 needles”.  So my knitted blanks had come out almost 50% too wide!  Fortunately I had kept good enough notes that, by going through my “scratch paper”, I was able to reconstruct the right numbers.  I then knitted and wove up a test sample, to test my calculations. Thankfully, it worked, so all that remains is to re-knit and re-dye the four blanks.  That will take about a week, which is a pretty serious setback considering I have only eight weeks left before the Convergence Fashion Show entry deadline.  On the other hand, it could have been a lot worse: if I hadn’t recovered the correct number from my notes, I’d have had to start again from square one, calculating and sampling to figure out the right settings.

Anyway, I’m now back to the knitting machine, and will spend the next few days knitting new blanks.  (Fortunately, I started out with 2 kg of wool yarn, so I should have enough.)  I have four days off at Christmas, so I’ll dye the blanks then.  With luck, I’ll be able to catch up enough to start sewing in the New Year.

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

Previous post: Trying to relax
Next post: Finished the pattern!

Comments

  1. glennis says

    December 18, 2011 at 8:09 pm

    i like your chocolate covered solution…

  2. Joy Schulenburg says

    December 18, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    Losing that much time truly sucks.however, your immediate response was appropriate! I have one of those Carmels stashed aside for such emergencies too! I think I’ll reward myself with it after I’m done here ar rehab. I know you’re project will be gorgeous and a total winner!

  3. Cassandra Nancy Lea says

    December 19, 2011 at 5:51 am

    Chocolate is a faithful friend….
    BTW, I don’t know if I am telling you something new or if you are into buttons or what, but, in the course of trying to find a duplicate of a missing half of a pair of cufflinks made out of some neat buttons, I spend a lot of time in that category on ebay. (whew…run-on sentence alert) They have some of the most splendid buttons..I almost always end up buying some. “My” button cufflinks are a pair I bought in Paris and one side is a metal stamp picture of an old-fashioned biplane landing in front of a row of trees, and the other side is a tiny lady’s hand with a lace cuff. Every time I see the one left I get mad all over again and it is now 30 years on! Wish I could find somebody willing to duplicate them for me. I can only imagine how pricey that would be, tho.
    I also need to confess with what mixed feelings I watched your wedding dress happen. When I was engaged, I was planning to do the same and had already ordered my sample yarns and was getting ready to dress the loom for sampling (with bleached noil silks) when I got jilted. I kept the yarns for a long time, thinking I’d make SOMETHING out of them, but, somehow, just could never touch them. I finally gave them away. I’m glad you had a happier outcome!

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