Creative works

April 12, 2010 by Tien Chiu 25 Comments

wedding dress

In April 2009, I took a workshop on designing fabrics from Sharon Alderman at the Conference of Northern California Handweavers. For the workshop, we were asked to come up with an idea for a finished piece, so we could choose yarns and design the fabric to suit the finished work.

I was racking my brains, wondering what would be challenging enough to need the expertise of a legendary weaver, and finally decided to design what I had always wanted to make: a handwoven wedding dress!

I was not engaged at the time, so this was a purely theoretical project. I had a pattern that I really loved, and a vision of the pattern with a ribbon of Chinese double-happiness characters going down the front opening, and Asian “eternity knots” in the body of the dress.

I took them to the workshop, and wove this on my 24-shaft AVL Workshop Dobby Loom:

Sample for handwoven wedding dress — Sample woven at CNCH

(The Chinese double happiness character symbolizes a happy marriage – it is the character for happiness, written twice and merged into a single character: two individual happinesses merged into one happiness = a happy marriage.)

I then returned home and blogged about the samples I’d made, emphasizing that B. and I were not engaged, and that this was a purely theoretical wedding dress. B. read my blog, and said, “You know, I really wouldn’t mind being married to you…”

Not the most romantic proposal, but…the wedding was on!!

I started sampling for the dress and coat, drafting several different patterns and dyeing various weft colors. Because I had a very narrow loom, my cloth would be at most 24″ wide, so I had to weave double the required yardage. I decided to weave 16-20 yards of each fabric.

My first effort was disastrous. I had only been weaving for a bit over 2 years when I started the project, and I innocently sett the 60/2 silk warp at a whopping 96 ends per inch! That turned out to be far, far too dense, producing a very sticky warp. And I wound on the warp too loosely, resulting in nightmarish tension problems. Despite all this, I wove off ten yards of the warp in about six weeks. Then I took some time for contemplation, and realized that the fabric was too flawed to use. I set it aside, having learned a lesson in what not to do.

Back to the drawing board. This time, I got troubleshooting help from some very experienced weavers, who helped me solve my tension problems and my sett problems, and sett the warp at 72 ends per inch. This was still quite dense, but wove off much better than the previous warp, and I successfully completed 16 yards of it.

Now I was faced with a difficult challenge. I wanted to sew this wedding ensemble “the right way”, using couture techniques. But I didn’t have any experience with couture, and this would not be something I could learn successfully from a book. So I started networking around the local weaving and sewing guilds, looking for a teacher who could help me sew the dress. After several false starts, I found Sharon Bell, a fashion school professor emeritus and former couturier, who agreed to help me. Her contributions have been invaluable, from the perfect fit of the garment to some of the interior construction to endless suggestions on how to make it better.

We sewed muslin after muslin, perfecting the fit, until we were finally happy with the fit. Sharon made tiny changes, sometimes as little as an eighth of an inch, until she was happy with the fit and flow of the garment. Finally, it was time to cut into the fabric. I took a deep breath, a second deep breath, and cut into the fabric I had spent months weaving:

first cut — First cut into my precious handwoven!

At the same time I was sewing, of course, I was also sampling and weaving the coat fabric. I had settled on a pattern of Tibetan eternity knots, woven in silk and a very fine metallic gold thread. This warp was sett less densely than the dress fabric, at “only” 60 ends per inch, and wove off beautifully.

Meanwhile, on the dress, we had started constructing the garment. Sharon constructed a “mini-corset” inside the dress, which would a firm foundation to the off-the-shoulder design. Once the interior construction was done, I started applying some gorgeous imported French Alencon lace that my future mother-in-law had bought for me, enhanced by real 4.5mm Akoya pearls – the same cultured pearls that you would find in fine jewelry.

handwoven wedding dress with lace and pearls

As the dress began taking shape, we started work on the coat as well. I had a pattern, Butterick 4732, that I really loved:

I wanted the double-happiness ribbon to run down the front of the coat, but we would need to shape the ribbon considerably around the neck edge. Because of this, I couldn’t weave it in silk; the warp would have to be wool. I spent nearly a month ordering samples and running around after false leads until Laura Fry, a weaving friend of mine, very nicely sent me some samples of Silk City 2/28 merino, and then sent me the larger quantity that I would need to weave the ribbon. It worked! and we assembled the coat successfully.

handwoven wedding dress, closeup — handwoven wedding coat, closeup

Now, close to completion, we started work on the tedious handwork. Much of the work in couture is in the details: how the seams are finished, how the hem is done. As a small example, there are five rows of stitching in the dress and coat hems, four of which must be stitched by hand! I was giving thanks to every god in range that I had chosen a simple, A-line pattern, not a big floofy skirt with miles of hem.

In all, this project took almost exactly one year of intensive work to finish, approximately 1000 hours of hard work, between weaving and sewing. Is it worthwhile? Absolutely!! The finished pieces are gorgeous – beautifully symbolic, museum-quality garments, worthy of what promises to be a wonderful marriage to the man I most love on this Earth.

The symbolism of this coat is threefold:

the double-happiness symbols in the front of the coat represent happiness in marriage
the eternity knots in the body of the coat represent eternity, and wisdom
the three-strand Celtic braid pattern in the dress stand for “eternity” in Celtic culture

Together, they symbolize a wish for eternal happiness in marriage.

Here are some photos from

our wedding day:

I am very pleased to say that the dress is now part of the permanent collection at the American Textile History Museum, in Lowell, Massachusetts. It was on display in 2013 as part of their “Behind the Veil: Brides and Their Stories” exhibit. Here are two photos from the display:

Me with my dress at the American Textile History Museum exhibit — At the American Textile History Museum exhibit opening

Finally, here are some of the in-progress photos:

Photos of the coat:

Handwoven wedding coat, draped over dress form. Photo by Joe Decker, Rockslide Photography.

First sketch of wedding outfit

Pattern for the coat

A muslin for the coat, showing the double-happiness ribbons and an eternity-knot variant. I printed the draft out in Photoshop to get a sense for the effect.

A sample of the double happiness pattern. The pattern is an eight-shaft satin set against a 4-shaft broken twill.

A mockup of the coat, using the sample fabrics, to show what it would look like with the fabric.

This is the coat fabric being woven. It is composed of three-strand metallic gold floats against a 6-shaft broken twill background. Warp is 60/2 silk, weft is 2 strands of a thin gold metallic.

The eternity knot fabric draped over a dress form. It's beautiful!

A closeup of the finished eternity knot fabric.

A front view of the partially finished handwoven wedding-coat

Rear view of the partially finished handwoven wedding coat

Handwoven wedding coat with double-happiness ribbon

Three-quarter view of me in the wedding-coat. Photo by Joe Decker, Rockslide Photography.

Closeup of the front opening in the wedding coat. You would not BELIEVE what I went through to get those characters to match perfectly!

The neckline, with the dress peeping through. Photo by Joe Decker, Rockslide Photography.

Closeup of a seam in the wedding coat. It took several hours for me to match up all the motifs in all the pieces of the dress.

Me looking down at the front closure of the wedding coat. Photo by Joe Decker, Rockslide Photography.

Photos of the dress:

Initial sketch of the wedding dress

I chose a three-strand Celtic braid pattern (the same as I used in the cashmere coat) for the dress fabric, and experimented with lots of different warp threads and setts before settling on this one. It's 60/2 silk warp, sett at 72 epi, woven with 120/2 silk weft. It's about the weight of a 30mm crepe and is LUSCIOUS!

The wedding-dress fabric draped over a dress form, to give an idea of what it will look like in the dress.

I fell in love with a piece of Alencon lace while shopping at Britex Fabrics with my soon-to-be mother-in-law, and she was kind enough to buy me a yard and a half of it. Is she cool or what???

The Alencon lace on the fabric. It's going to be GORGEOUS!!

An interim view of the wedding dress, with pearls and lace still in the design stages.

Partially completed wedding dress, with the back lace basted on.

Partially completed dress, three-quarter view

three-quarter view of (essentially) complete dress. Photo by Joe Decker of Rockslide Photography

Dress on dress form, nearly complete. Photo by Joe Decker of Rockslide Photography

closeup of dress. Photo by Joe Decker of Rockslide Photography.

closeup of bodice. Photo by Joe Decker of Rockslide Photography

A second view of me in the handwoven wedding dress

February 21, 2010 by Tien Chiu 1 Comment

Lava Flow

The Handwoven Magazine “Not Just for Socks” reader challenge inspired this shawl, a collapse weave in two different sock yarns. I was rummaging through my stash of sock yarns for the contest, and found some Cascade Fixation, an elastic sock yarn with a crinkled appearance that reminded me of cooled lava. This, in turn, brought to mind my trip to Hawaii and the beautiful rivulets of fire in the lava flows there. So I set out to recreate the beauty of flowing lava, fiery ruffles against crinkly black stone, flecked with fire:

I scrunch-dyed some Knitpicks Bare sock yarn in various shades of flame (red, orange, gold, bright yellow), and warped it in stripes, alternating with 1″ sections of a black elastic sock yarn, Cascade Fixation. I warped the two yarns separately, with the Knitpicks Bare going onto my sectional warp beam, and the Cascade Fixation wound into chains, with each chain weighted separately.

I then wove several samples with different weft yarns:

samples for handwoven collapse weave shawl — Samples for “Lava Flow”

After considerable hemming and hawing, I decided that while I didn’t like the gold metallic on its own, it might add pizazz to one of the two other options. I paired it with the multicolored red-orange-yellow weft (bottom right), and loved the results so much I decided to weave up the entire shawl using 1 strand of gold metallic and 1 strand of variegated red-orange-yellow 30/2 silk.

For this shawl, because of the collapse, I used a very open sett and beat, setting both warp yarns at 8 epi and weaving at about 6 picks per inch. (Normal sett for a balanced tabby weave is 10-12 epi in most sock yarns.) It worked beautifully – the open sett/beat gave room for the elastic yarn to “do its thing”, and I got about 50% shrinkage and beautiful orange ruffles!

October 15, 2009 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

Ikat socks

These are really cool. (No, really.) The colored stripes and moire patterns in these socks are achieved using very precise skeining and dyeing techniques. I’m quite pleased with myself for coming up with the idea, and you should really check out the full-size pictures, which look even more (!) interesting than this photo. Each “stripe”, you see, is actually two different colors…it looks a bit like a pointillist painting. I call them my Monet socks.

This is a pretty trick done with carefully space-dyed (handpainted) yarn. I call them “ikat socks” because they look a bit like ikat (warp-painted) fabric.

Here is one pair of finished socks, which show some of the effects you can get with this method: spirals, vertical stripes, and a moire effect.

These socks also have color variations within the stripe: each vertical stripe is made up of two colors alternating, one each row.

The socks are actually pretty simple. First, you calculate the exact length of a row, by swatching the main body of the sock (knit in the round to make sure the gauge is correct). Then, if you wind a skein the exact length of a row, and space-dye it, the colors will line up as you're knitting, giving you a more-or-less vertical stripe.

For these socks, I used a variation: I wound a skein the exact length of TWO rows, so the first six colors are knitted in the first row, the other six colors are knitted in the second row. So there are six colors that "stack" on one another, every other row.

In this photo, the red on the far left stacks on the purple on the far right, the left-hand yellow stacks on the right-hand orange, the left-hand blue stacks on the green in center, and so on around the skein. This skein gives a total of six stripes: red-purple, yellow-orange, blue-green, red-orange, yellow-green, and blue-purple, in that order.

If this skein were one row in length, the colors would come out in exactly the same sequence as on the skein.

If you wind the skein with exactly even tension, and knit the sock with exactly even tension, just as was done on your swatch, you get vertical stripes, as in the center of this photo. However, this is pretty rare and takes a fairly experienced knitter. It's also less interesting.

When the color repeat and the row length differ by one or two stitches, as in the bottom of the swatch, you get a slowly drifting spiral with a lot more visual interest than plain verticals.

If the stitch length is "off" by multiple stitches (2-3 stitches around the sock), then you get a fast spiral, moving around the sock quickly, and narrowing the stripes. (Notice how thin the yellow and red stripes look towards the far right.)

If the stitch length is too far "off", the colors don't stack properly and you get colored static, not stripes. Here, in the center of the sock, the extra stitches for the gusset disrupt the pattern. It doesn't take much to do it, either--being even four or five stitches "off" will do it.

If you start getting static, try increasing or decreasing a few stitches--I found I had to "fudge" the stitch count to get the stripes to line up.

This was interesting: I think I must have wound parts of the skein at different tensions. The stripes start out moving to the right of the sock (top of the photo), then drift leftward (bottom of photo). A rightward drift means the color repeats are just a little shorter than the length of a single row; a leftward drift means the color repeat is just a little longer than the length of a single row.

I actually changed the stitch count a couple times on each sock, to give the stripes more variation. (I stuck the increases/decreases into the back of the sock, so they don't show.)

Finally, a look at different stitch effects. The left side is stockinette stitch, the right is 1x1 ribbing. I personally like the stockinette better--it gives a smoother effect--but of course ribbing is stretchier. Since I made these socks out of a not-terribly-stretchy silk-wool blend, I used 1x1 ribbing for the main body.

Anyway, I hope this has convinced you that space-dyed yarns can be interesting, especially in socks...I hope to knit up a couple more examples, but I really like these rainbow socks.

This trick also works with sweaters, but you'll get static anywhere you have shaping. It might be interesting to combine horizontal stripes (using different colored yarns) in the shaped sections with "ikat" stripes in the unshaped sections...if you try it, send me a photo!

October 15, 2009 by Tien Chiu 4 Comments

Spiral Shawl

I started this shawl in June, 2003, shortly before AIDS Lifecycle 2.

I had just finished my travel shawl, a blue silk shawl handspun on a drop spindle as I roamed around Southeast Asia on a quasi-pilgrimage, letting go of my past life and considering what came next. I knitted the travel shawl in a counterclockwise spiral as I wandered–which, in Wicca, means letting go, undoing.

On my return, I needed a new project, so I decided to make a companion piece–a clockwise spiral that would help build my new life, the things I most valued.

So, I began the spiral shawl.

This is my own design. The finished shawl is 68" across, and is a "ring shawl"--fine enough to be drawn through a woman's wedding ring. It contains about 2300 yards of 2-ply yarn,...

The yarn is 50% bombyx silk and 50% merino wool, from a commercially prepared top I bought at my local fiber shop, The Golden Fleece. It measures 40-50 wpi and 8500 yards per pound (500+ yards per ounce!). That's about the thickness of a pin, or a thin sewing needle.

The complete shawl, from design to completion, took 15 months and 350-400 hours of work. (!)

...handspun on one of the silver spindles from my travels.

I knitted this shawl to celebrate a return to daily life, after returning from my travels/pilgrimage, and knitted into it the things I felt were essential to a good life. It's a "prayer shawl".

It is a circle, a spiral in eight segments, with eight patterns in each segment. (On the left is shown one full segment.)

In Buddhism, eight represents the Eightfold Path; in Wicca, it represents the Wheel of the Year, the cycle of the seasons as they pass. So the eight-by-eight motif is, as they say, "an auspicious number".

Here are the first four patterns in each segment (leaf, star pattern, flames, ripples).They represent earth, air, fire, and water--the four Elements in balance. In Wicca, the elements symbolize not just the physical world, but also the mental and spiritual worlds. So if earth, air, fire, and water elements are all in balance, the world is as it should be--mind, body, and spirit.

The next two patterns represent light (plain stockinette stitch) and darkness (openwork star pattern). In Wicca, light and dark are not oppositional, but complementary: they follow each other in a cycle, day after day, year after year. Sometimes one is greater, sometimes lesser, but both are always present. The complete victory of one or the other would destroy all life.

So this section is partially about balancing the light and dark in our lives--remembering that joy and sorrow follow one another --but also about remembering that there is dark and light in all of us. To deny the darkness is to destroy the light. So one must accept that there is darkness--and light--in everyone. That prevents us from ever seeing another being as entirely evil (or entirely good). Light and dark, in balance.

The next-to-last pattern, which is a bit harder to see, is an AIDS ribbon, representing "right action". This is not simply activism--though it does include many kinds of activism--but more about "doing the right thing". First and foremost, it's about acting with compassion. Sometimes that means speaking out, and sometimes it means keeping your mouth shut. The essence of it is to act (in a balanced way) to help others and improve the world--not just sometimes but always, even when people drive you crazy.

The final segment is a heart, symbolizing compassion--the beginning and end of all things.

Getting metaphorical, the spiral shawl represents an inwards journey to enlightenment: the four elements in balance, then recognizing the balance between light and dark (good and evil, sorrow and joy). These are all external. The two internal values are action--the bridge between the outer and the inner--and then, finally, at the very end, the center--compassion. That we come to the center at the end, on the edge of the shawl, closes the Wheel of Life, beginning the cycle anew.

I spent a lot of time meditating on the components and values of "a good life" during the 15 months and 350+ hours I worked on the shawl....It is indeed a "prayer shawl", in every sense. I hope you've enjoyed the tour.

The very beginning of the shawl...back where we started. I'm starting a new design tomorrow.

(It never stops, does it?)

Pattern Credits:

Earth: “Drooping Elm Leaf”, from Barbara Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns
Air: “Quatrefoil Eyelets”, ibid
Fire: “Chinese Lace”, from Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns
Water: Adapted from Suzanne Lewis’s Knitting Lace
Light: plain stockinette stitch
Darkness: “Starlight Lace”, from Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns

“Right Action” and “Compassion” are original to the author, as is the overall shawl design.
Shawl design, images, and text all © Tien Chiu, 2004.

September 2, 2009 by Tien Chiu 2 Comments

Ocean Sunset II

This was a variation on the Ocean Sunset shawl, except that I made it with a knitted blank!

Knitted blanks are an interesting concept taught to me by Nancy Roberts of Machine Knitting to Dye For. You knit up a rectangular piece of fabric, dye it, and then unravel it and reuse the yarn. Using this technique you can get gradual color changes WITHOUT having to dye a zillion skeins, and you can get other effects as well (see the “Crazy Colors” shawl for an example). In this case, I dyed a single blank a gradual change from yellow to red and back again to see what would happen when I wove it up!

I am of mixed minds about this shawl. I don’t like the boldness of the lines near the bottom of the shawl, but I like the idea of the gradual color change. I think I may try this idea again, but with a simpler pattern.

The pattern for Ocean Sunset II.

The warp on the loom. Doesn't it look pretty?

This is the knitted blank. Notice how it shades gradually from gold to red.

It's hard to see in the photo, but the bobbins gradually change color from start to finish. Beautiful!

The completed shawl before wet-finishing.