Warp & Weave | Tien Chiu's Blog

December 19, 2018 by Tien Chiu

A huge “THANK YOU!!” to the weaving community!!

The first launch of my online courses is over. And it went really well.

Here’s a copy of the email I sent out to my Warp & Weave subscriber list yesterday morning. It pretty much says it all.

Dear ____,

Absolutely no sales stuff today. Instead, I want to say a huge, heartfelt THANK YOU to you and the rest of the weaving community.

When I quit my job at Google three years ago to pursue my dream of making a living as a weaver and a weaving teacher, I wasn’t sure I could do it. As we all know, it’s really, really hard to make a living in the fiber arts. I didn’t want to live my life on a plane, so I decided to focus on teaching online. It was a leap of faith.

I wasn’t sure I could do it. Neither was anyone else.

Some friends were supportive. Others, less so. One weaving “friend,” when I told her my plans, said, “Good luck. I hope you like being poor.”

The last few years have had ups and downs, but I kept going because so many people told me my blog posts about color in weaving were useful and enlightening. Both of my parents are scientific researchers. I believe that one of the greatest gifts one person can give another is the gift of understanding, and one of the highest callings a person can have is figuring out how things work and then teaching that to others. Knowing my posts were teaching and helping others gave me the courage to keep going.

The response to my course launch has been phenomenal, and has given me confidence that my “friend” was wrong, and that I can – in time – make a full living as a weaving teacher.

When I was an undergraduate at Caltech, renowned science fiction writer David Brin came to speak at SPECTRE, our science fiction book club. At the end of his talk, he told us about a nightmare he’d had.

“I was at work in the astrophysics department, as usual, and my boss came up behind me. He said, ‘We’ve figured it out! You’d do this for free! In fact, you’d pay US to do this!’”

“I woke up in a cold sweat,” said Brin. “And now, I lay the David Brin Curse on all of you….that someday, you too will wake up from the same nightmare.”

Thank you, all of you, for making my David Brin Curse come true.

Tien

December 8, 2018 by Tien Chiu

Color Courage for Weavers has launched!!!

After a week of nonstop preparation, I launched yesterday around 8am. The response has been phenomenal – over 500 people enrolled in my free mini-class so far, and quite a few enrollments in the paid classes as well.

I kept an eye on things for an hour or two after launch, then was so exhausted that I finally fell over and slept for several hours. Last week was so busy I’ve got a LOT of sleep to catch up on!

Oh, and my keychain? Here’s what it looked like yesterday around 7am:

And here’s what it looks like now.

Finally, after three years, I am really and truly done with the old life, and on to the new. And I cannot tell you happy and grateful I am!!

Here’s a copy of my launch email.

First, the headliner: Registration for Color Courage for Weavers – Basic and Color Courage for Weavers – Workshop is now open!! You can find out more about both classes by going to my courses homepage:

classes.warpandweave.com

Now…

You may be wondering why I’m so passionate about teaching color. The short reason is that I love color, but I had an AWFUL time figuring out how to use it, particularly in weaving. My early works – the pieces most people have never seen – are littered with color disasters.

So if you’ve had color challenges, I feel your pain. I spent years struggling to find good resources about color in weaving. There aren’t many of them, and there were even fewer when I was searching. I spent a lot of time bashing my head against the wall trying to figure out color.

Toni Morrison once said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

So when I lost patience and decided I was going to figure color out once and for all – weaving hundreds of color swatches and dyeing thousands of yarn samples in my quest to understand color in weaving – I wanted to pass that information on. I saw absolutely no reason why any other weaver should have to go through what I did.

And that’s why I created Color Courage for Weavers.

Color Courage for Weavers – Basic is an introductory course on color and design, meant for the weaver who is comfortable with choosing drafts and yarns for projects but is hesitant about color choices.

Color Courage for Weavers – Basic starts by covering the parts of color theory that are most relevant to weavers, illustrated with lots of handwoven samples. Then it moves on to explain the four design factors that I feel are most important in creating a project’s unique look and feel – again, with lots of handwoven samples. It explains how to control each design factor through choice of color, weave structure, scale, yarn size, and a few other factors.

Finally, Color Courage for Weavers – Basic addresses the design process, including tools for creating and testing your designs before you put them on the loom.

Color Courage for Weavers – Basic isn’t just meant to be absorbed passively, though I’ve created a discussion forum and sowed questions throughout the course that I hope will encourage you to reflect what you’ve learned, to think about your current design preferences and process, and share your thoughts with other students.

I feel that sharing ideas and inspiration with like-minded weavers, helping them solve problems and being helped in return, is one of the best ways to learn any topic. I hope you’ll jump in on those discussion prompts and join the conversation, and join the general discussion in the alumni forum at the end of the course.

If you are nervous about color, Color Courage for Weavers – Basic will help you transform that nervousness into confidence. You won’t know everything about color – frankly, nobody knows everything about color – but you’ll have the tools and knowledge to strike forth on your own, and you’ll have the company of other like-minded and knowledgeable weavers.

To sign up for the course, go here:

classes.warpandweave.com/courses/color-courage-weavers

Color Courage for Weavers – Workshop is for weavers with a similar level of experience, but who want to go deeper. You should be comfortable picking drafts, yarns, and setts to create a project.

While the instructional materials for Color Courage for Weavers – Workshop are the same as in the Basic course, you’ll get six sets of hands-on exercises designed to take you from a “book learner” to an experienced designer. I’ll give you feedback after each exercise, but I’ll also lead a class discussion about the exercise, encouraging everyone to reflect on their current design practice and how they can integrate their new knowledge to change that practice.

In addition to the exercises, you’ll get 12 one-hour weekly Q&A sessions with me to clear up any confusion or question marks that might arise. I’ll try to schedule those Q&A sessions to allow the maximum number of students to attend, but if you can’t make it, no problem – you can send your question in advance, and all the sessions will be recorded so you can watch them whenever you want.

At the end of the Color Courage for Weavers – Workshop course, you’ll have knowledge, design skills, and practice using those skills in designing real projects. You’ll also have an alumni forum where you can stay connected with, share inspiration with, and get/give help to similarly knowledgeable weavers.

Color Courage for Weavers – Workshop will help you “level up” from a technically competent weaver to a “pop, sizzle, crackle!” color designer.

To get more information and sign up for Color Courage for Weavers – Workshop, go here:

classes.warpandweave.com/bundles/color-courage-for-weavers-workshop

To celebrate the first offering for both classes, I’m offering an introductory special on both of them.From now until December 17, you can get Color Courage for Weavers – Basic at $30 off the regular price – follow this link for details:

classes.warpandweave.com/courses/color-courage-weavers

For the introductory class of Color Courage for Weavers – Workshop, I’m offering a $50 discount off the course price. Follow this link for details.

classes.warpandweave.com/bundles/color-courage-for-weavers-workshop

Don’t wait – registration for Color Courage for Weavers – Workshop is closes December 17! and the introductory discount on Basic ends December 17, too.

Happy weaving!

Tien

December 3, 2018 by Tien Chiu

Remove before launch

I’ve been pretty silent here for the last few weeks because I’ve been working like crazy on prepping my online course Color Courage for Weavers for its launch. (Coming up fast. Really fast.)

And I’m not going to say much right now because I’m still working like crazy trying to get the launch ready. You have no idea how many moving parts are involved!

But I did want to share one thing with you.

You may recall that, long ago and far away, I worked for a company called Skybox Imaging….which made, launched, and operated state-of-the-art, seriously bleeding-edge imaging satellites.

Well, when satellites are constructed, there are typically protective parts that are kept in the satellite while it’s being stored on Earth, but are removed just before it leaves the planet and goes into orbit.

So people don’t forget to remove those parts, they are typically tagged with big red labels that look like this:

So shortly after I joined Skybox, I got a “Remove before launch” keychain fob to commemorate the launch of our second satellite. The one that convinced Google to buy us.

After I left Google, I thought, “Remove before launch. Hey, that’s cool. I’ll just leave it on until I’m ready to launch my new business. That’ll be another six months or so.”

Then Life Happened. It’s now been on my keychain for over three years post-Google.

But…it’s coming off.

Within the next week.

Stay tuned….

October 6, 2018 by Tien Chiu

More than my weight in weasels

101 days ago, I was a couch potato. Today?

That’s me squatting 780 weasels (195 pounds) – more than my body weight!

And here’s me at 99 days, deadlifting 700 weasels (175 pounds):

That kind of improvement exceeds my wildest expectations – in fact, it sounds like something you hear about in an ad on late-night TV. You know, “I was a 48-year old couch potato…but after 101 days of Weasel-Power! Boot Camp, I was squatting over 780 weasels!” That would totally have me going out and buying their Weasel-Power video series and their “Weasel-Flex” exercise widget! (For the more gently minded, of course, there would also be “Weasel Yoga – Make yourself supple as a weasel!”. Or – for you digital folks – the electronic game with social media leaderboards, “Wea-Fit”.)

But the amazing part (to me) is that I’ve made this massive improvement without a single injury. I’ve had plenty of muscle soreness, and I’ve tweaked my wrist, shoulder, etc. a few times, but no major injuries and no soreness lasting more than a few days. This kind of improvement isn’t my expertise and certainly isn’t luck: it’s having an excellent trainer. Touissant has done a fantastic job of encouraging me to push as hard as I can without going beyond my physical limits (general or from minor injuries), and helping me improve my form so I can lift more efficiently while staying safer.

Just as importantly, working with Touissant has gradually enabled me to trust that I’m not going to hurt myself lifting, which has enabled me to put everything I’ve got into the workout, rather than worrying about whether I’m going to hurt myself this time. I have a long history of overdoing it exercising and then losing months to injuries – now that I can trust him to watch out for me, I don’t have to unconsciously limit myself and can put everything I’ve got into the task at hand.

Another thing that’s made rapid progress possible is that Mike and I are working out together. We get fewer exercises done total, but it’s more fun to be able to work out with a friend and partner, so I’m more comfortable working out and more motivated to show up.

All of which has made me realize how important having a mentor and a peer group is to learning/doing anything new. People have asked me how I learn each new medium with lightning speed. I’ve always said, “Because I focus obsessively on things and I read a lot,” but I’ve also realized it’s because I reflexively seek out mentors and social groups that can answer my questions, encourage me, and keep me from getting frustrated when I tackle my super-over-ambitious projects.

I think this is true for others as well. So the online course I’m developing will offer both direct mentoring (from me, of course) plus a forum where students can interact, encourage each other, discuss the exercises and their current work, etc. Because, especially for people who are nervous about a new topic, having someone to guide, encourage, and support you makes learning much easier (sometimes it’s what makes learning possible at all!), and having a peer group to work with helps you put that learning into practice once class is over.

Speaking of the class…I’ve been pretty quiet about my teaching business for the last few months, mostly because I’ve been hard at work on it! But I’m getting closer to releasing my class. Close enough that I’m comfortable divulging a few details.

The class is going to cover the essentials of color in handweaving. The first part will cover basic color theory: the fundamental properties of color (hue, value, and saturation), how colors interact when interlaced in cloth, and a brief discussion of color mixing.

The second part talks about design: How to set the mood of a handwoven project by controlling drama, energy, and ambiance with color.

And the third part walks you through the design process: Choosing and using a warp color, weft color, and draft to achieve the mood you want.

The class will be offered in two formats. One will be a 1-2 hour streaming video plus handouts. That will (cross fingers) be released in November.

The other class option will be a full online course, with a discussion forum, exercises, feedback from the instructor (me!), etc. I’m planning to open registration in mid to late November, with the first session starting in January.

Here are two slides from the section on the design process:

Designing with Color - design process slide #2 — Designing with Color – design process slide #2

Designing with Color - design process slide #3 — Designing with Color – design process slide #3

I hope that, once my course is released, my students will be making weaselly fast progress with color!

By Keven Law (originally posted to Flickr as On the lookout...) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons — By Keven Law, via Wikimedia Commons

July 28, 2017 by Tien Chiu

A new undertaking

As you may have guessed from my relative silence over the last few months, putting together a new business is no cakewalk. Warp & Weave has been soaking up most of my creative energy for several months now, which is why I’ve been posting less frequently here – though I do hope to get back to a more frequent posting schedule once I’ve gotten past the frenetic startup phase.

If you’re wondering what Warp & Weave is about, it’s my online teaching website. It’s focused on how to choose and use colors in handwoven designs. This is a topic that puzzles many people – in fact, when I did a reader survey to see what people’s greatest creative challenges were, color was one of the most frequently mentioned concerns. “I feel like an idiot when it comes to color,” “Color terrifies me,” “I don’t understand color at all” were pretty common responses.

And yeah, I’ve had my share of color mishaps (and feeling like a color idiot, too). One of my earliest projects was a shawl made of expensive silk/wool yarn (Jaggerspun Zephyr), in colors that I hand-dyed myself. Because I had dyed eight brilliantly vivid hues, I thought I was going to get a beautiful rainbow shawl. Surprise! I got a dull, muddy mess instead. The shawl is still stashed away in a drawer somewhere, a testament to color disasters.

It’s not surprising that color mishaps happen fairly frequently to weavers. Weaving is the most complicated fiber art when it comes to color, because we are always mixing warp and weft in our work. In knitting, it’s easy to put a patch of solid purple next to a blob of bright yellow – in weaving, a purple warp and a yellow weft will interlace, creating various mixes of purple and yellow (how much of each depends on the weave structure, among other things). So weavers need to understand color mixing far better than other fiber artists in order to create attractive projects.

That said, color is not some mystical understanding that is bestowed on some people via divine guidance. Color follows certain basic rules, and anyone who understands them can design effectively with color. The problem is that, as far as I can tell, nobody is teaching those rules. I’ve spent a good chunk of the last few years studying color theory and color mixing (that’s part of why I dyed 1,500 sample skeins this year), and while I’ve found bits and pieces of color theory in various fiber-related books, I haven’t found a single resource that explicitly covers color theory as it relates to weaving.

My ambition is to fix that. I want to give people a systematic understanding of color, so they can choose and use their own handweaving palettes with confidence. I also want to dispel the illusion that it’s some supernatural talent. I was a color idiot until I spent several years educating myself. Now I know how to use color effectively. So I can tell you from personal experience that color is not an inborn talent; it’s a skill. It’s knowledge that anyone can learn. And it doesn’t have to take years and years; in fact, I’m hoping to impart all that knowledge in weeks, not years.

My plan, with Warp & Weave, is to do two things:

First, I’m writing a biweekly article/blog post about how to use color in handweaving. The article will focus on solving specific color problems that weavers face. For example, the blog post that was published this morning is all about what to do when your bright colors weave up into muddy, boring ones.

Second, I’m developing some online classes about color in weaving. (You can sign up for Early Bird notification here.) The intent of those classes is to teach people how to design with color – how to pick a color palette, color proportions, and weave structure to produce whatever kind of fabric you want. The difference between the blog articles and the classes is that the blog articles solve individual problems; the classes will teach you a system that enables you to identify and solve your own problems.

This is a huge undertaking, of course – way more effort than writing my book was. It’s not just about understanding and explaining the system, which I could do relatively easily. It’s also about weaving samples to illustrate each of my points, creating and recording slide decks, learning to shoot and edit videos, and a ton of other stuff required to create and sell online classes. But I’m really looking forward to it, because difficult projects are interesting, and I think I can do a lot of good for the handweaving community by demystifying color. I also think I might be able to make a living at it, which would be good. (For me, if not for you. 🙂 )

This does not mean that I’m giving up my other projects. Far from it! I just finished dyeing the last of the skeins for my stole commission. I’ve gotten Amazing Grace’s warp tied on, debugged, and ready to weave, which means I can get going on weaving samples for Everett’s stole. I’m also playing with a fractal design program so I can create more pieces like Marvelous Mandelbrot. On the dyeing side of the house, I am almost (only one dye session left!!) done dyeing the 1,500 cotton sample skeins, and getting ready to embark on my 1,500 silk fabric dye samples.

So there is lots going on on the creative front, and I plan to write plenty about those projects in this blog. But there will be a lot of activity on Warp & Weave, too – so if you are a weaver, and interested in color, you may want to hop on over to the site and sign up for the newsletter, so you’ll find out about blog posts there.

Coming soon on this blog: a new post about my experiences with Lady Ada, my new-to-me 8-shaft Baby Wolf loom, and the hilarious things that can happen when you pair a high-tech weaver with a low-tech loom. Watch for it!

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