Tien Chiu

  • Home
  • About
    • Honors, Awards, and Publications
  • Online Teaching
  • Gallery
  • Essays
  • Book
  • Blog
  • Dye samples
You are here: Home / All blog posts / Presenting “Ode to Joy”
Previous post: Samples and skeins
Next post: Cat-iversary #3!

September 7, 2016 by Tien Chiu

Presenting “Ode to Joy”

By weaving like a madwoman, I finished weaving “Ode to Joy” in time for my friend Joy’s memorial service. It came out beautifully!

Ode to Joy - memorial piece for Joy Schulenberg
Ode to Joy – memorial piece for Joy Schulenberg

The six motifs around the edges of the red-and-gold eternity knot represent things that were important to Joy:

  • rainbow heart for gay rights
  • triquetra knot for spirituality and her magical work
  • Spinning wheel to represent her love for spinning and knitting
  • High Priestess Tarot card – she was a gifted Tarot reader and often associated with the High Priestess
  • scorpion for her astrological work (she was a Scorpio)
  • Time Lord symbol (Gallifreyan) – because she was a fervent Dr. Who fan.

The four animals in white and gold in the center of the knot are Joy’s spirit animal (bear), the spirit animals of her two partners (African wild dog and Chinese dragon), and her spirit mentor (white owl).

And of course the four photos in the corners were all of Joy, at various stages in her life.

I ran into a ton of technical challenges while weaving this piece…mostly having to do with the density of the weft (crosswise) threads. After weaving about half of the first picture, I realized that the images were badly stretched, winding up about 20% longer than they should have been. This was probably due to the red design in the center, which had a lot of interchanges between the blue and the red layers of fabric. The more changes between layers, the more difficult it is to pack the weft in – so a section with a lot of color changes will naturally come out more loosely woven than a section with fewer changes.

I thought a bit about how to correct this. I could have squished the remaining piece by 20%, but then the difference between the early portion and the later portions would be obvious. I couldn’t start over without wasting a lot of precious and irreplaceable thread. (The gold thread, remember, was made with real gold – I had bought it from a yarn shop liquidator and had no way of buying more.) I finally realized that the eternity knot that framed everything could be stretched without problems – so I could proceed by simply adjusting the motifs in each section to be 20% shorter.

Here are the motifs as they were fed to the loom:

squished motifs
squished motifs

And here’s how they looked after they were woven:

Closeup of the center of "Ode to Joy"
Closeup of the center of “Ode to Joy”

As you can see, they actually stretched a bit more than expected – the circle is slightly out of true – but on the whole, it came out very well. And the animals – bear, Chinese dragon, white owl, and African wild dog are wonderful and vivid. (The piece is even prettier in person…the camera doesn’t capture the glitter of the gold thread, or the richness and depth of the blue background.)

I’m very happy with the end result – I think it’s one of the best pieces I’ve created, and I think Joy would be proud. (And I can’t believe I went from initial sketch to finished work in just nine days!)

Share this post!

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

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving Tagged With: joy memorial

Previous post: Samples and skeins
Next post: Cat-iversary #3!

Comments

  1. Darlene Wainwright says

    September 7, 2016 at 6:14 pm

    Absolutely stunning. A wonderful tribute to your friend.

  2. Linda Adamson says

    September 7, 2016 at 8:23 pm

    Wow, what a memorial! It is indeed a beautiful piece.

  3. Sandra Hutton says

    September 8, 2016 at 1:23 am

    Nicely done, Tien.

  4. Kathy White says

    September 8, 2016 at 7:56 am

    So glad to know the meanings of the motifs. A work of art and love!

  5. Judy says

    September 9, 2016 at 9:15 am

    An amazing tribute. Joy couldn’t have asked for a better friend. So sorry for your loss.

  6. Janet Colville says

    September 10, 2016 at 12:47 pm

    A wonderful tribute to your friend. How big is the piece? I know there are many threads but what are the dimensions? You’re definitely a special friend to have done this.

    • Tien Chiu says

      September 19, 2016 at 10:24 am

      26″ x 41″, I think. A nice size for a large wall hanging!

  7. Chandra Rogers says

    September 13, 2016 at 8:20 pm

    I was impressed when I saw the design online, and stunned when I saw it in person. You really did honor her in so many ways with this work. I feel fortunate that I got to see it and to meet you.

    Hopefully we will get to spend time together again. I would love to sit and chat with you about fiber arts.

    • Tien Chiu says

      September 19, 2016 at 10:23 am

      If you’re ever in the area again, drop me a line! It would be fun to get together. And I’m glad you liked the piece!

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...