Tien Chiu

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You are here: Home / Archives for collapse weave

August 8, 2010 by Tien Chiu

Waffling

By dint of hard labor (4 hours on Friday and another 6 hours on Saturday), I got the warp threaded, sleyed, tied on, debugged, and (ta-daa!) wove the first two yards of samples yesterday, all in variants of waffle weave.  I cut the sample in half and wet-finished half of it, though I didn’t press it since I was after a collapse effect.

Here’s what I got:

Plain weave with white 60/2 silk weft, beaten firmly.  Warp is black 60/2 silk sett at 40 epi.
Plain weave with white 60/2 silk weft, beaten firmly. Warp is black 60/2 silk sett at 40 epi.

You can see that there is (as expected) close to no collapse here.  I think the sample looks darker because the warp and weft collapse into one another a bit, “averaging out” the color.  It’s a pity, as I really loved the silvery look of the freshly woven fabric.  Pressing might also help; I need to try that later.

Next up, waffle weave, both as an allover pattern and as a networked pattern, also with firmly beaten 60/2 silk as weft:

Waffle weave, networked and allover pattern, with white 60/2 silk weft, beaten firmly.  Warp is black 60/2 silk sett at 40 epi.
Waffle weave, networked and allover pattern, with white 60/2 silk weft, beaten firmly. Warp is black 60/2 silk sett at 40 epi.

Here you can see more collapse, but not as much as I had hoped; I was hoping for a really puffy look, but what I got was a bit of unevenness.  I suppose that’s to be expected as the waffle cells were not huge and there is still quite a bit of plain weave.  Notice that the sample is getting narrower, too, because of the collapse.  Especially in the “pure” waffle weave section.

Next, I tried weaving it with an overtwist wool yarn that I got from Laura Fry.  First, I beat it firmly:

Plain weave and waffle weave, networked and allover pattern, with white overtwisted wool weft, beaten firmly.  Warp is black 60/2 silk sett at 40 epi.
Plain weave and waffle weave, networked and allover pattern, with white overtwisted wool weft, beaten firmly. Warp is black 60/2 silk sett at 40 epi.

The collapse is fairly dramatic and even the plain weave sections are collapsing substantially, suggesting that the 40 epi sett is still a little wide to produce a balanced weave with the overtwist yarn – thus giving it room to collapse in on itself.

The collapse in the waffle section is even more dramatic, but – zoom in to look at the closeup – most of the definition is gone from the waffle cells.   A pity; I thought they were attractive.

And, finally, the overtwist yarn, beaten very softly to produce a very open cloth:

Plain weave and waffle weave, networked and allover pattern, with white overtwisted wool weft, beaten loosely.  Warp is black 60/2 silk sett at 40 epi.
Plain weave and waffle weave, networked and allover pattern, with white overtwisted wool weft, beaten loosely. Warp is black 60/2 silk sett at 40 epi.

Here the collapse (as expected) is super dramatic – over 50% – but, alas, you can barely make out any pattern.

I am guessing that using a felting wool weft would probably result in similar results.  Today, if I am sufficiently motivated, I may try weaving up a sample with a 1/22 mohair yarn (a trifle larger than the 60/2 silk warp) and wet-finishing it in the washing machine.  But today is dye day, so I’m not sure I will get to it!

Plan for today: dye the first batch of Lanaset samples in “pure” colors.  This means mixing up stock solutions for each of the pure colors (colors that are not mixes of other colors), then dyeing skeins of yarn at various depths of shade.  Per Karen’s assignment, each color should be dyed at 0.1%, 0.5%, 1.0%, and 2.5%, with navy and black at 0.5%, 1.0%, 2.5%, and 5%.  That comes out to 4 samples for each color.

Now, I am dyeing the 5 gram sample skeins in pint mason jars, and I can fit 17 of them into the electric frying pan that I use for samples.  So I can basically do four colors at once, assuming I can keep up with all the stirring that needs to be done.  (I think I can, but have to experiment to find out!)  So that is one set of dyeing work.

I also want to dye some 12,000 ypp tencel/silk yarn in jewel tones to use as weft with this warp.  This means using a different dye, since tencel is a cellulose fiber.  I will dye this using Cibacron F.  Since I am not especially concerned about reproducible color here, I can use a looser methodology than with the Lanasets.  But it still means using winding (and tying!) more skeins, a different type of dye, mixing up different dyestocks, and somehow trying to keep track of all of this while dyeing the other stuff.  Maybe not such a good idea!  But I really do want to get it dyed as well.

And, finally, ten pounds of cherries are still staring at me reproachfully from the fridge.  Today is cherry pie day, I think, and maybe a batch of brandied sour cherries, or some more candied sour cherries.

All in all, makes for a busy day.  Better get started!

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, dyeing, weaving Tagged With: collapse weave, dye study group, network drafting, waffle weave

February 21, 2010 by Tien Chiu

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:

"Lava Flow" handwoven shawl, collapse weave
“Lava Flow” handwoven shawl, collapse weave in sock yarn
"Lava Flow" handwoven shawl, collapse weave
“Lava Flow” handwoven shawl, collapse weave, closeup

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!

Filed Under: All blog posts, Creative works, Fiber Arts, finished, textiles, weaving, Weaving Tagged With: collapse weave

February 16, 2010 by Tien Chiu

Interlude…playing with fire!

After returning from the photo shoot, I had just enough energy to put up the photos and collapse into bed.  I slept twelve hours on Sunday and another eleven hours on Monday, and in between puttered around the house doing not much of anything.  Exhaustion from working 40+ hours/week on the dress for almost two months, on top of a full-time job!

After all that effort, I felt rather burnt out on the dress, so I decided to take a short break from it and work on another project I’d been wanting to do: an entry for the Handwoven Not Just For Socks sock yarn challenge.  This would be a collapse weave shawl, woven with stripes of elastic sock yarn alternating with “regular” sock yarn, producing ruffles.  I planned to make the ruffles flame-colored, the flat areas black, and title the resulting piece “Lava Flow”.

Sock yarn, of course, is HUGE (at least by my standards), so this worked up very quickly.  I wound the warp, beamed it on, threaded it, sleyed it, and wove the first set of samples in less than a day.  And here they are:

handwoven collapse weave shawl samples, plain weave
Four samples for "Lava Flow"

Top left: gold metallic (the same gold metallic I used for the coat fabrics).

Top right: 2/28 black cashmere weft

Bottom right: variegated red-orange-yellow 30/2 silk

Bottom left: orange 30/2 silk.

I think the “winner” is the bottom right one, with the variegated flame-colored silk weft, because it reminds me of lava more than any of the others.  It might be nice with one strand of 30/2 silk and one strand of metallic, but I’m not going to invest any more time in sampling – this isn’t a Major Project, just a sideline.  When I get up tomorrow, if I still like the variegated weft yet, I’ll tie on and start weaving for the finished project.

My one regret is that I couldn’t make the stripes more irregular.  Next time I’ll try beaming on as on a plain beam, which will let me do more randomizing.  But, as previously noted, this is just a diversion, so I’m not going to work obsessively on perfecting it.  I’ll weave it, photograph it for the contest, send it in, and forget about it.

Tomorrow: back to work on the dress!  It’s been a refreshing interlude, but I’m itching to get some more sewing done!

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving Tagged With: collapse weave

August 6, 2009 by Tien Chiu

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

A recap of the last five days:

two 5-yard warps for tea towels:

First set of tea towels (Laura warped this one for me)
First set of tea towels (Laura warped this one for me)
2nd set of tea towels (I warped this set!)
2nd set of tea towels (I warped this set!)

A 5-yard warp’s worth of collapse weave samples (now neatly indexed and ready to go into binders):

Collapse weave samples
Collapse weave samples

A shawl from the collapse weave sample I liked best:

Collapse weave shawl, full view
Collapse weave shawl, full view

And learned to make bobbin lace, producing three bookmarks (my first one not shown because I left it behind in Canada; Laura’s mailing it back to me)

Bobbin lace bookmark - my second project
Bobbin lace bookmark #2
3rd bobbin lace bookmark, this one with spider stitch
3rd bobbin lace bookmark, this one with spider stitch

Not bad for 5 days!

And now I’m home, re-energized, refreshed, and ready to go!

(By the way, if you are interested in studying with Laura in her studio, it’s only $100/day with hotel, or $125/day if you stay at Laura’s.  If I were you I’d jump on it!  Her contact info is on her website at http://www.laurafry.com .)

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving Tagged With: bobbin lace, collapse weave, laura fry

August 5, 2009 by Tien Chiu

Collapse weave shawl, bobbin lace #3

The collapse weave shawl came out BEAUTIFULLY!  Here are two photos:

Collapse weave shawl, full view
Collapse weave shawl, full view
Collapse weave shawl, closeup
Collapse weave shawl, closeup

Isn’t it stunning?  I LOVE the ruffled “ribbons”.

Hard to believe that that’s “just” plainweave, but it is!

And, I finished my third bobbin lace bookmark.  Here is a Very Bad Photo, but you can get the general idea…

3rd bobbin lace bookmark, this one with spider stitch
3rd bobbin lace bookmark, this one with spider stitch

I fly home today, so I’m not starting any new projects.  Instead I’ll be roving through Laura’s voluminous swatch collection and library, looking for inspiration, information, and good reference texts to add to my library later (after I have a job again).

This has been fun!!  I can’t imagine a vacation I’d rather have than this one.  🙂

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving Tagged With: bobbin lace, collapse weave, laura fry

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