fine threads | Tien Chiu's Blog

Sorry for the radio silence! I was in a creative funk most of last week, but I snapped out of it over the weekend, and have been too busy weaving to write!

Between Saturday morning and Sunday evening, I finished winding, threading, sleying, tying on, and debugging 1,440 threads in the latest warp. And here is the result:

handwoven cloth at 90 epi — handwoven cloth!

The warp is sixteen inches wide, with ninety ends per inch – I had been nervous about the density, but it turns out to be just perfect – the pattern beats square, anyway, though I am having to double-beat before throwing the shuttle, to clear the shed.

Anyway, the cloth is just gorgeous – it’s wildly iridescent (only somewhat visible in the photo) and the delicate pattern (circles and diamonds in huck lace) feels just perfect. I think I am a convert to weaving with superfine silks! It requires considerable patience, but the results are wonderful. I have ten yards on this warp and am looking forward to weaving it off!

Debugging was a real pain, though. The first few inches of the warp are where all the tension issues, mis-threadings, etc. all turn up and have to be fixed, and that process took me at least three hours. It’s difficult because after all the work in threading up the warp, you still can’t weave! But I got through it at long last, and weaving the fabric was pure pleasure.

The next two photos remind me of a Zen koan that I read somewhere:

A samurai asked a Zen master to teach him about Heaven and Hell. The Zen master replied, “I cannot possibly teach this to someone as stupid as you.”

Angered, the samurai drew his sword to chop off the Zen master’s head. The master said, “This is hell.”

Enlightened, the samurai sheathed his sword and bowed to the Zen master to thank him. The master replied, “And this is heaven.”

So, here’s the weaver’s version.

This is hell:

fine cloth with lots of broken threads — Hell

And this is heaven:

fine cloth with no broken threads — Heaven

This morning, a triumph!

I got the tabby warp – wound, painted, washed, and dried – onto the loom. I beamed it back to front with a trapeze, and it worked beautifully and went on fast. I only broke five threads of the 140/2 silk while beaming, and could happily ignore them since I had wound an extra 25 threads in case of breakage. (When working with painted warps, I find it easier to wind an extra thread or two in every inch of warp, and simply swap in the thread whenever I break an end.

Here’s a photo of the beamed-on warp:

beamed-on warp for Phoenix Rising sample

The warp beam looks totally empty, but there’s actually seven yards of warp on it! It’s such fine silk, though, that it takes up no room at all.

Then I went to put the lease sticks into the pattern warp. Somewhere in the back of my before-coffee brain, a spark of suspicion started to grow…wasn’t that pattern warp looking an awful lot like the tabby warp?

I checked, and sure enough, I had dyed a second tabby warp instead of the pattern warp. You can see the difference here:

pattern and tabby warps for Phoenix Rising sample

The white thread in the center is the “real” pattern warp. On the left is what I thought was the pattern warp, and on the right is the tabby warp. You can see that the left and right sides are the same size yarn, and the center yarn (which you can barely make out, unfortunately – white on pale brown isn’t the easiest thing to photograph) is heavier than either.

What this means is that I will have to re-wind and re-dye the pattern warp before I can start threading. Zounds! Will Our Heroine ever get this warp on the loom?

Tomorrow morning I fly to Maryland for the memorial service, so there may be a break in blogging for a few days. I’m still hoping to get this warp on the loom and ready to weave in October…so I can weave those exciting first few inches before chocolate season arrives in full force.