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May 17, 2017 by Tien Chiu

A narrow shave

The good news first: after almost six months of setback after setback, I finished threading my loom!!

I know it doesn’t look like much, but at a density of 120 ends per inch, that’s 1,760 threads – quite an effort!

Just as I was about to pop the cork on the champagne bottle, I noticed that I had run out of threads at the very end. There were four empty heddles. What could have caused four empty heddles?

…and then I realized that I had missed four heddles early on, and as a result, virtually all the threads were threaded in the wrong order. Normally you would thread all the heddles in position #1 on the front four modules in sequence front to back, then thread all the heddles in position #1 on the back four modules, again front to back. I had managed to shift the sequence, so instead of being threaded 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 front to back, they were threaded 5,6,7,8,1,2,3,4 front to back. This is the sort of mistake that leads to guzzling a fifth of whiskey and then passing out on the studio floor. And then giving up, pulling everything out, and starting six months’ work over again.

Fortunately, before I went out to get the aforementioned bottle of whiskey, I decided to email the Jacquard Study Group in hopes of finding a solution. I was quickly reassured that I could fix the problem in software, either by “casting out” heddles on the TC-2 or by changing the order of the heddles in the software. Hooray! Disaster (narrowly) averted. But it was a close shave.

Around the time I breathed my sigh of relief, the doorbell rang. It was the mailman, delivering the mail. There were two copies of Shuttle, Spindle, and Dyepot in the mail. Curious why I would be getting two copies, I paged through the magazine. And there was a wonderful review of my book Master Your Craft!

So exciting.

I’m off in a few days to teach my “Power Up Your Process” workshop for the Eugene Weavers’ Guild. I’m also presenting my “Get Wild: Secrets of Brainstorming” program for them. I’m looking forward to meeting my students and teaching the class!

January 24, 2017 by Tien Chiu

First book review!

I’m pleased to announce that I have my first book review for Master Your Craft!

I got home late last night to find the latest copy of American Craft on my doorstep. American Craft is the member publication of the American Craft Council, and is the pre-eminent magazine for high-end craft. I opened it up, started paging through it, and lo! A book review!

Here’s it is:

Review of Master Your Craft in the magazine American Craft

I’m thrilled to have my first book review published, especially in such an eminent magazine – super exciting!

And of course, when I read the review, the first thing I did was run to Amazon and check out my sales rank. And it was ranked #115 in the Crafts –> Reference category! That is the highest it has ranked since release – in fact, the next highest ranking was only in the 200’s. Very encouraging!

Master Your Craft Amazon sales ranking for January 23, 2017

So yesterday was a wonderfully exciting day. Especially since another marvelous thing also happened – but I’ll tell you about that in my next blog post.

November 11, 2016 by Tien Chiu

SOFA Chicago – Part I

Sorry for the long lapse! I have been traveling like crazy – last week I was in Chicago, this week I’m in Southern California. I’m going to try catching up now…

Last week I went to SOFA Chicago – and what a time I had! I flew in on Thursday afternoon, and spent a very pleasant, low-key Friday with my in-laws before going to the show on Saturday. SOFA Chicago showcases top-flight craftwork – it is put on by galleries, who bring selected works from their featured artists. While there weren’t many textiles, it was an amazing show otherwise – I’ll showcase some of the art in my next blog post.

Chicago is just entering fall, and while it wasn’t yet the blaze of autumn leaves that I’d been hoping for, I did get to see some beautiful fall leaves:

fall leaves in Chicago — autumn tree in Chicago

If you’re wondering why I’m so fascinated by fall, it’s because I haven’t seen a real autumn for almost 30 years. Neither Los Angeles nor the San Francisco Bay Area have what I would call “fall” – yes, a few trees change colors, but most do not. So you get one or two trees changing colors on every street, but you never get a blaze of glory as all the trees change at once. I don’t miss the cold weather, and I definitely don’t miss slush and ice in winter – but I do miss fall. So it was nice getting to see even a little bit of it, for once.

Saturday I went to SOFA. It’s an incredible show – the creme de la creme of craft artists. I’m planning to cover some of the craftwork in a separate post, so I’ll leave that to later – but despite a dearth of textile artists, I found a ton of creative inspiration there. I also got inspiration of a different sort when I went to the Schiffer Publishing booth. My book Master Your Craft: Strategies for Designing, Making, and Selling Artisan Work was displayed prominently on a beautiful table. As I walked up to the display, I overheard two people (who were looking through the book) talking excitedly about how wonderful Master Your Craft was and how much they needed what was in it. They were delighted to meet me and get their books signed. Moments like that are golden for writers – they make the four years that went into the book totally worthwhile!

Here’s a pic of myself at the Master Your Craft display, with Pete Schiffer, the president of Schiffer Publishing:

Master Your Craft display at Schiffer Publishing

Later that day I gave my lecture, which was very well-received. The audience wasn’t huge (about 30 people), but they were engaged and attentive, and several people came up after the talk to say how great they thought it was. Sandra, my editor, was in the audience and said it was great to watch people’s eyes light up as they got “Aha!” moments throughout the presentation. And afterwards, ten or twelve people followed me to the Schiffer booth to buy books and get them signed.

Here’s a pic of me at the podium, wearing my jacket Autumn Splendor:

And here I am signing books afterwards:

The day finished on a lovely note. My mother-in-law had gifted a friend with a copy of Master Your Craft, and got a wonderfully enthusiastic thank-you note in return. Here it is:

I’m totally blushing. And delighted, of course! Helping others was my primary goal for the book, and it’s marvelous to hear that I’m succeeding.

I flew home on Sunday morning, still aglow and more certain than ever that spending four years writing the book had been the right thing to do.

October 26, 2016 by Tien Chiu

Many celebrations: cloth, craft, chocolates, and Chicago!

Wow! It’s been an action-packed week – things have been happening so fast I haven’t had a chance to catch up! But here are a few of last week’s highlights:

First, I celebrated a decade of weaving on October 20. Yep, last Thursday marked the 10-year anniversary of my learning to weave! On that fateful day, I brought home an 8-shaft Baby Wolf, and the rest is history.

Here’s my first weaving project:

And here’s my most recent one:

Quite a difference!

Second, I went to the American Craft Council conference, “Present Tense,” and had a wonderful time! It kicked off with a tasting of craft whiskeys:

And I gave a talk. Here’s Chris Amundsen, the executive director of the American Craft Council (who wrote the Foreword for my book Master Your Craft), about to introduce me for my “Creative Blocks” talk:

Tien and Chris Amundsen at "Present Tense" talk — Tien and Chris Amundsen at “Present Tense” talk

I’m pleased to say that the talk went well! The audience was engaged, and we had some great conversation about common creative blocks and how to address them. Much to my interest, one of the most common creative blocks was time and time management. When I got home, I wrote a Creating Craft blog post about finding time for studio work – which seems to have struck a chord: it’s already had more Facebook shares than anything else I’ve written in 14 years of blogging! I’m so glad people are finding it useful – if you are grappling with not enough studio time, check it out! I hope you will find it useful as well.

I also discovered that both the American Craft Council’s magazine American Craft and the Surface Design Association’s publication Surface Design Journal are planning to run reviews of Master Your Craft. And Schiffer Publishing is getting ready to send flyers to 1,000+ craft schools to sell Master Your Craft. So lots of good news there!

Pivoting to chocolate, Chocolates for Charity is now done, and brought in over $4,550 for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. Thank you to all who donated! It’s a great cause; the money will fund some great textile programs and exhibits in the coming months.

And here’s a photo of this year’s chocolate haul, 112 pounds of Valrhona chocolate:

Finally, I’m pleased to say that I’ve been invited to give a lecture at SOFA Chicago! This is a large and renowned craft show – one of the top shows for gallery-represented artists/artisans. This is where collectors come to buy high-end craft. Most of the lecturers are very well-known artists sponsored by equally well-known galleries, so this is quite an honor. My talk will be on Saturday, November 5, from 4:30-5:30 in Room B, followed by a book signing from 5:30-6:30pm in the Schiffer Publishing booth. More details at http://www.sofaexpo.com/2016/lecture-series . (For those who would like to attend – SOFA Chicago will be held at Festival Hall, Navy Pier, 600 East Grand Avenue Chicago, IL 60611 .)

So it’s been an action-packed couple of weeks…stay tuned!

August 17, 2016 by Tien Chiu

Got my first coaching client!

I’m pleased to say that I have my first coaching client! She and I met through the Laptop Lifestyle Academy, a forum for people who are building online blog businesses. I’m going to be coaching her through the process outlined in my book, starting with a single project – a crocheted shoe. Of course the point is not to get to a finished piece; it’s to understand and practice the Creative Cycle and the principles behind it. Once she has that down, she’ll be able to accelerate her own leap to mastery. It’s going well so far!

I’m looking for more coaching clients, both to build experience and to help understand others’ creative roadblocks so I can plan out my online class. So if you think you might be interested in help, either with overcoming specific creative roadblocks or with a more systematic approach, email me at tien@creatingcraft.com . I’m offering a free 20-minute consultation; if you feel you need more help afterwards, I’m making a special offer of $59/hr (for the first 10 hours), but only for the first five people to sign up. After that it will go up to my posted rate of $100/hr. More details here – or just email me, I don’t bite!

(Don’t be shy about getting a free consultation, by the way; I am very interested in hearing about what problems people might want to solve, and I promise I will not give you a “hard sell” at the end. For me, this is about understanding my audience, so I will get value out of a free consultation even if we don’t wind up working together.)

Meanwhile, today I got the awesomest rejection letter EVER, from a publicist I was trying to hire. Here’s what she had to say:

After really taking a close look at everything you have in place and your goals, we just don’t think <my agency> is the best fit for you and your book. This actually comes from a place of admiration and support. So many of the services we offer focus online. The truth of the matter is, you have already covered online marketing in your plans for the book. It’s so important to us when we take on any project that we feel we are filling a need and can provide a service that an author can’t do on their own.

To be honest, we were blown away (and incredibly impressed!) with the plans you have in place. You have an extremely well thought out plan and the contacts/network you need to execute on that.

It’s rare but what I heard from my team today was that you were all set and we actually don’t have additional services to offer. That’s a huge compliment from my pretty tough group.

While I hate to send an email letting an author know we can’t help ““ this is truly the best kind. You don’t need our help. You are really really doing well on your own!

Please do keep us posted. We think you have a great product on your hands and a great plan in place. We’ll be anxious to hear how everything goes!

The other publicist I approached said the exact same thing. I guess all the reading I’ve done about book marketing has paid off! (Of course, I still need to execute on the plan, but at least my to-do list is sound.)

Weaving is progressing very slowly right now, but I have been busy harvesting! Here are 5 gallons of muscat grapes, which Mike will hopefully transform into muscat wine:

I am just a wee bit terrified by this sight. You see, we have four young grape vines. This was the first year we got any grapes at all, and only from two of the four vines. On top of that, we lost probably about 2/3 of the crop to a fungal rot (and probably rats, birds, etc.). And despite all that, we still got a five gallon bucket full of grapes! This suggests that we will be buried under a landslide of grapes in a few years.

Not to mention the 23 fruit trees in the yard, the raspberry patch, the six blueberry bushes, and the partridge in the pear tree. (Just kidding on the last; we have five peach trees, three cherry, two avocado, two dwarf mulberry, an aprium (apricot/plum hybrid), a plum, two persimmons, a dwarf pomegranate, a Meyer lemon, a Key lime, a kaffir lime, a bergamot, an almond, and a kumquat bush, plus a giant passionflower vine – but no pear trees. I guess the partridge will have to perch somewhere else!)

And – since cat photos have been somewhat sparse recently – here is a picture of Fritz and Tigress. As you can see, one of them has a well-developed, elegant sense of feline dignity, and the other, um….doesn’t. 🙂