bathrobe | Tien Chiu's Blog

January 6, 2011 by Tien Chiu

An embarrassingly large amount of yarn

Work stuff has kept me too busy to do anything requiring brains, but I had some leftover time on my hands, so I decided to inventory my stash. After some hemming and hawing, I decided to put it into an online database at http://creator.zoho.com. I could just as easily have put it into an Excel spreadsheet, but I liked the look of the data entry form in Zoho, and with an online database you can access it from any computer. And Zoho exports to Excel in any case.

Here’s a screenshot of the data entry form I cooked up in Zoho (took about 15 minutes):

Screen shot of yarn entry form. Click to load full size version, then click to zoom in.

And here’s a screenshot of the view I built to show all yarns. I have another view set up to show me only all animal yarns, and another to show me all cellulose yarns (the distinction is important to me since I dye most of my yarns). Here is the neatly-organized All Yarns page, screenshot anyway:

Screen shot of "All Yarns" view. Click to load full size version, then click to zoom in.

Contrast this with a view from an Excel spreadsheet:

For ad hoc filtering, Excel is much easier than Zoho Creator. However, it doesn’t present the information as neatly. I’m hoping to find an option that allows me the simple filtering of Excel, the neat presentation of Zoho Creator, and which is online/accessible anywhere.

Anyway, after inventorying all of my yarn, I totaled up the amounts. Egad! I have 171 pounds of yarn – 97 lbs of animal fibers (51 lbs of which is silk, 14 lbs cashmere), 63 lbs of cellulosic (cotton, rayon, linen, etc.), and a few pounds of synthetic yarns, mostly monofilament nylon for woven shibori. That is more than my weight in yarn, and far more than I need. I am seriously considering whether to reduce the stash again, or whether just to suspend yarn purchases until I make a dent in it.

Meanwhile, the diversified plain weave sample with the 3000 ypp chenille is woven, wet-finished, and dyed:

diversified plain weave sample woven with 3000 ypp rayon chenille as heavy weft, scrunch-dyed in flame colors

It is beautiful and very supple, I think too supple for a jacket, which needs to have more body. So I am flummoxed once again. I am having lunch with the couturier who helped me with my wedding dress this weekend, and I think I will ask her advice on what to do.

December 21, 2010 by Tien Chiu

Handwoven article, and finished scarf!

The new Handwoven is out! If you haven’t gotten it yet, the article about my dress (a half-pager) is on page 29. Woo hoo!

And, in other cool news, the scarf is dyed, wet-finished, and ready to go:

finished, dyed scarf in diversified plain weave

finished, dyed scarf in diversified plain weave, other side

I like it! I think the colors are maybe a little too dark (it’s darker in real life), and I think the flame colors of the previous sample stand out better, but these colors suit the intended recipient a lot better than orange would!

The scarf is a little narrower and not as soft as the other sample, probably because I was a bit harsher in washing out the dye. It shrank from 12 x 83 inches in the reed/on the loom to 8.5 x 73 inches, so there’s only about 12% shrinkage in the length but a bit over 25% in the width. I conclude from this that the rayon chenille shrinks a lot more than the cotton!

Now I have some enforced time-away-from-weaving. The dyed cotton and rayon chenilles aren’t dry yet, so I can’t start winding a new warp. There isn’t enough of the old warp left to do anything interesting with. And we’re going off to visit family in a few days, which means I can’t really start a new project. I’m doing my best not to twitch. 😉

Anyway, this is giving me time to reconsider what I want to do. It’s been suggested to me that chenille may not be the best choice for a frequently-worn, frequently-washed garment. I don’t know enough about chenille to know for sure (I’ve never worked with it), but this may prove to be a deal-killer for the chenille bathrobe. It’s also becoming clearer to me that I want something more elegant than a conventional bathrobe. Perhaps a kimono robe, perhaps something more fitted and stylish – but then I couldn’t throw it on over a T-shirt, and I’d feel bad about wearing it while doing the laundry (etc.). So the mix is still evolving.

I am pretty sure I want to weave up chenille yardage in diversified plain weave, though, because I think it’s an interesting weave structure and because I’m enjoying working with the chenille. The question is, what does one do with the yardage? I’m having lunch with Sharon (the seamstress I worked with on the dress) in about two weeks, so I think I’ll bring her a sample and ask for her thoughts. Meanwhile I will continue weaving samples in different weights. That should keep me busy for at least the first week or two of January.

I’m also working on my presentation for Black Sheep Guild. I’m pretty close to finishing the content of the presentation, and now need to practice delivering it once or twice to make sure it fits in the time allotted. After that, I’ll start working on making the slides pretty. I think I will do a different handwoven fabric as the background for each slide (if I’ve actually woven enough suitable cloth to do that!), to add some visual interest.

December 18, 2010 by Tien Chiu

Dyed samples

With a little more obsessive weaving (and dyeing, and sitting firmly on my hands to give the dyed sample time to “set”), voila, the first set of dyed samples:

Dyed sample, 1450 ypp cotton chenille as the thick weft

Dyed sample, 2 strands of 3000 ypp rayon chenille as the thick weft

I’m a little disappointed with the dye job – the photo was the effect I was after, but in real life it looks almost solid orange-red with a little bit of variation. (I suspect the flash illuminated it with bright light, showing more of the color variation.)

The fabric overall is lusciously drapey and thick, the cotton more so than the rayon. Possibly too thick for my purposes. I am considering a second test with 2000 ypp cotton chenille as warp and weft (still using 60/2 silk for the thinner yarn), and see how that comes out. If it comes out nicely, then I’ll order some 2000 ypp rayon chenille and do a second trial with the rayon chenille as weft. (I’m doing it that way because it’s really too late to get packages before the holidays, and I haven’t the patience to wait before sampling.)

The rayon chenille weft seems to “pop” a good deal more than the cotton chenille weft – it is glossier and translucent-looking, whereas the cotton chenille is more matte and opaque – so I will definitely be using rayon chenille (of whatever weight) as the weft yarn.

Shrinkage is comparable in both samples and is pretty dramatic – 25% in the weft direction (I stupidly didn’t measure the length before wet-finishing). This will be an issue with the pattern since it means my end fabric will only be 18″ wide! (I have a 24″ loom.) Some of the pattern pieces measure 20″, so that means I may need to redesign the pattern somewhat. Fortunately, the pattern has LOTS of ease and flares at the bottom, so chopping a little bit off the flared bottom part probably won’t hurt much. I hope!

I am VERY happy with the diversified plain weave structure – the colors appear to be completely solid, and there are no floats longer than three threads, thanks to the silk tie-downs. I think I will do quite a few pieces in this structure, as it’s GREAT for imagery!

I plan to weave another sample to check lengthwise shrinkage, and then weave the rest of the warp off in what it clearly wants to be – an absolutely luscious scarf, perhaps to be woven this weekend, finished on the plane, and given as a Christmas gift? If so, I will have to get a handle on my selvages, which currently look awful.

December 17, 2010 by Tien Chiu

Woven sample and trapeze warp

By working diligently (okay, obsessively) after Mike got up, and a little bit at lunchtime, I got the warp set up and this sample woven:

Woven sample, cherry blossoms in diversified plain weave

Aside from a few skips where shaft #24 was acting up, it looks GREAT! and I think I will most likely use it for my bathrobe. I still need to weave a couple more samples, both to test how it looks after dyeing and to see how well rayon and cotton chenille stand up to multiple machine washes (on delicate) and tumble drying. This sample has a rayon chenille weft (two strands of 3000 ypp rayon chenille), I want to do another sample with 1450 ypp cotton chenille weft, and see how they differ once wet-finished and washed/dried a couple times.

I want to use rayon chenille for the weft if possible, because I think the luster of the rayon chenille will really “pop” the cherry blossoms once dyed in bright gold/red/oranges. But I want to try cotton chenille as well.

And I am pleased to say that the trapeze method for the second warp works perfectly:

The black (cotton chenille) warp passes through the heddles and through a raddle clamped onto the back beam of the loom (with wooden spacers under the raddle to keep it from interfering with the 1st warp). From the raddle, it goes up and over my free-standing trapeze, which is made with two sawhorse brackets and 5 pieces of 2×4 – quick, easy, and cheap. I used two chains for a 12″ warp and weighted each chain with a 2.5-lb weight that I had sitting around.

And it works great! I can hardly wait to get the cotton chenille sample woven, so I can cut off and dye the samples.

December 17, 2010 by Tien Chiu

A tale of two warps

By being my usual cheerfully obsessive self, I got the rayon chenille warp wound and both warps threaded and sleyed yesterday. (Lest you be impressed, there were only 360 ends in this particular sample, as it’s only 12″ wide.) I also finished making my free-standing trapeze, which is basically an oversized sawhorse. I put 5’8″ legs into a pair of cheap sawhorse brackets ($7.58 a pair at Lowe’s Hardware) and stuck a 2×4 in between. Here’s the stock photo of how the sawhorse brackets work:

I’ve basically done the same thing but with much longer legs than a conventional sawhorse. I’m also leaving the top loose to make the sawhorse easier to break down; I’ll screw it down temporarily while using it, then remove the screws later.

I worry a bit about the trapeze tipping over, but if it looks like that might happen, I’ll follow Mike’s advice and run a big bolt through the back legs a foot or two from the floor, and hang some weightlifting plates from the bolt. I already have them for my live-warp tension system, so I won’t have to buy anything new.

Also, I plan to fix a raddle onto the back beam of the loom, like so:

second warp, passing through raddle, which will be clamped to the back beam with a wooden-block separator to keep it from catching the first warp (wound onto the back beam) — second warp, passing through raddle, which will be clamped to the back beam with a wooden-block separator to keep it from catching the first warp (wound onto the warp beam)

The idea is that the warp passes over the trapeze and through the raddle on the back beam, spreading the warp out and bringing it level to the heddles. (All sorts of unintentional hilarity would ensue if the warp came in directly off the top of the trapeze!) A useful side effect is that it ensures that most of the pull on the trapeze is vertical rather than horizontal, reducing the odds of tipping over.

I had a lot of trouble getting the tension even on both warps while tying on, and finally decided to tie on the two warps separately. I had trouble getting the rayon chenille warp tensioned correctly, with the ends even, because it was not tied to the back beam. Finally I hung the chains off the back of the loom, weighted them with a couple of C clamps, and used that light tension to pull against, to get the ends even.

And voila:

I am a bit worried that the two lashings-on will interfere with each other, preventing equalizing of tension, but I think I can manually adjust the tension on the strings if necessary.

On the whole, handling two separate warps, one wound on the back beam and one not, was a royal pain. For my next sample, I will try winding two warps together onto the back beam and using the weighted-rod method to make sure the looser warp gets tensioned correctly. I had been worried that the weighted rod would hit the floor before the end of a 15-yard warp, but Jean from Weavetech offered the brilliant idea of throwing the weight for the weighted rod over the top of a trapeze, thus allowing a lot more space for the rod to “drop” before it hit the floor.

The only possible problem with winding two warps together on the back beam is capacity – I want to put on a 15-18 yard warp, and I’m not sure I can fit a 15-yard warp in 1450 ypp rayon chenille onto my warp beam. Hanging a second warp from the trapeze would solve this problem neatly. The only way to find out whether it will work is to try, of course, and I plan to do so.

Anyway, I am now threaded, sleyed, and lashed-on. The only things left to do are to set up the trapeze, clamp down the raddle, toss the rayon chenille warp over the trapeze and weight it, and then – WEAVE!

None of which can be done until Mike gets up (in about an hour), so meanwhile, I’ll catch up on my reading. I finally got a copy of Doramay Keasbey’s Designing with Blocks, and it is fantastic. I also intend to play some more with WeavePoint, which Mike bought me as an early Christmas gift.

And, of course, there is always the Black Sheep presentation to work on. I have the basic framework in place and am now struggling to make it visually interesting, instead of a series of boring bullet points. I think I’ll be able to finish it before the deadline in January.