inkle weaving

January 24, 2015 by Tien Chiu

Restructuring complete!

I finished setting up the structural analysis on Thursday morning, and spent all day Thursday reading and re-reading the book as it was laid out on the foam boards. I moved topics (and entire chapters!) around, added things, and deleted things until I was content with the flow of the book. I have now eliminated most of the bold leaps into nowhere, the redundant bits, and the nonsequiturs. And I have expanded upon some fundamental ideas, which now appear in every chapter, unifying the book.

Since then I’ve reshaped the outline/mind map for the book, cut and pasted the topics into the appropriate chapters, completely rewritten Chapter 1, and done radical surgery on chapters 2 and 3. Now I’m working on Chapter 4.

I’m very happy with how this retreat has gone. I’ve literally accomplished more in one week than I did in the preceding two months. And I’ve been able to do some deep thinking about the structure of the book, something I wouldn’t have been able to do without a large chunk of focused time. I love the cottage I’m staying in (the sauna and hot tub on the premises are wonderful too), and am already planning to come back in July to put the final touches on.

And my plan for the rest of the day? Revise as many chapters as I can before the massage therapist arrives. 🙂 I’m getting a hot stone massage, which I’d never heard of before but which sounds positively decadent. Seems like a wonderful way to finish off the retreat!

Meanwhile, my dragon inkle loom arrived, and it is just gorgeous! Debbie at To-Ply Fiber Arts did a wonderful job. I asked for a custom loom with longer pegs, and she made a loom with 6″ pegs. To support them, she had to make the body of the loom thicker, so she sandwiched two layers of African mahogany around a central panel of American cherry, and voila!

I can’t tell you how pleased I am with this loom – it’s a work of art, and should be quite useful, too.

Tomorrow morning I pack up and drive back home. It’s been a wonderful and very productive retreat, but I can’t wait to see Mike and these furry faces again:

And now, off for lunch! The Ft. Bragg Fire House is hosting an all you can eat crab feed, and this girl can eat a lot of crab. I grew up in Maryland, after all – so I’m a trained professional when it comes to crab-picking.

January 2, 2015 by Tien Chiu

RavWriMo

As you may know, November is National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. During NaNoWriMo, participants try to write an entire novel – 50,000 words – in just 30 days. Those who have participated say it’s draining but also a lot of fun. And successful participants make a ton of progress on their writing!

Well, a group of us in the Pens and Needles writers’ group on Ravelry were lamenting the incredibly poor timing of NaNoWriMo. November just isn’t a good time for focused writing, given that it contains a major holiday (Thanksgiving) and is poised right before the holiday season – just as everyone’s trying to get their holiday knitting, weaving, etc. done. I’ve never participated because November is the height of chocolate season – a girl’s gotta have her priorities!

Since quite a few of us weren’t able to do NaNoWriMo this year, we decided to hold our own version, and RavWriMo was born! During the month of January, participants will set lofty writing goals and cheer each other on as we try to achieve them. There’s a thread for RavWriMo goals in the forum (you’ll have to join Ravelry to read it, though), and we’ll be posting our progress daily.

My goal for RavWriMo is simple: get the rough draft of the book done! I’ve drafted about half the chapters already, but they need substantial rewriting to align the tone/style/content into a single coherent whole. The other half are yet to be written. Once I have the rough draft of all the chapters, I’ll need to finish annotating and tagging my interviews, integrate interview material into the chapters, rewriting where necessary. Once that’s done, I’ll need to think about what photos I want to add and how many. Then I’ll look at the detailed outline and do a structural overhaul so it flows reasonably smoothly. Finally, I’ll ship it off to my editor at Schiffer for her to take a first look, and to my writing coach for her to make structural suggestions. All during the month of January. Just 30 days left!

Fortunately, I’m taking a week off work, and will be going to a small cabin in Ft. Bragg (about two hours north of San Francisco, along the California coast) to focus on writing for nine days. That will be January 17-25, so about two weeks from now. I’m actually hoping to have most of the chapters drafted by then, so I can focus on integration during my retreat. I can write chapter drafts in an hour or two here and there, but trying to assess and unify the structure and style of the entire book is something that I think needs serious chunks of focused time. So I am going to try drafting four of the seven remaining chapters before leaving on my retreat.

While I plan to focus primarily on writing, I’ll need to take breaks from time to time. So I’ll be bringing my little inkle loom, and some inkle and tablet weaving supplies. Also a printer, second monitor, laptop/mouse, index cards, and various minor writing tools (scissors, tape, etc.). There’s a reason I decided to stay local – I couldn’t possibly fit all that into my luggage if I were flying!

Speaking of inkle looms, here’s the latest on the Ashford Inklette:

This is using the Monk’s Belt structure and pattern described in Anne Dixon’s The Weaver’s Inkle Pattern Directory, page 100.

I’d best wrap up here as our plane is getting ready to land. I’m looking forward to getting home and seeing these wonderful furry tykes again:

And if we’re lucky, they might even meet us at the door!

Fritz and Tigress greeting us — Fritz and Tigress saying “Hello!”

December 31, 2014 by Tien Chiu

More inklings

I finished the second warp on my inkle loom! I wove six designs from pages 40-41 of Anne Dixon’s The Weaver’s Inkle Pattern Directory. I started with pickup in a single color and then moved to two colors at once, as you can see below (the bookmarks are in chronological order, left to right):

second warp on the inkle loom - bookmarks 1-3 — second warp on the inkle loom – bookmarks 1-3

second warp on the inkle loom - bookmarks 4-6 — second warp on the inkle loom – bookmarks 4-6

I’m very pleased with what I’ve gotten done so far – my one frustration is that I have to weave off the entire warp before I can see what I’ve woven. But that’s OK, I guess – it motivates me to finish it faster!

December 30, 2014 by Tien Chiu

Give me your heddled masses

We’re now in Chicago, visiting Mike’s family. I’ve been continuing to play with the inkle loom, among other projects. I put on a warp that alternates dark purple and white in the center – which turned out to be a major mistake, as doing pickup in dark purple threads is a real eye test. So far, I pass, but after a few hunched-over hours I decided there had to be a better way. I looked up a tutorial on tying continuous string heddles (thank you, Laverne Waddington!) and promptly tied four sets of string heddles – one that picks up every other white thread, one that picks up the remaining white threads, one that picks up every other purple thread, and one that picks up the remaining purple threads. Since my current design involves picking up every other pattern thread, I figure I’ve got my bases covered.

Here’s what it looks like now:

So far inkle weaving is proving to be more of a side entertainment than a serious interest. It “feels” more like knitting than like weaving to me, perhaps because of the extensive hand manipulation. Design doesn’t seem to be that complicated, though I’m not attempting to design my own just at the moment (no graph paper!). But I’m enjoying weaving some of the patterns in Anne Dixon’s The Weaver’s Inkle Pattern Directory.

I’ve also been working on an entry for Handwoven‘s Handwoven for the Home reader contest. I’m doing placemats with a matching table runner – the table runner being basically a series of three or four shortened placemats. The structure is double weave with one layer narrower than the other, and all four edges as separate cloth. I got the idea after buying one of Pat Stewart’s lovely shawls in mixed doubleweave and integrated cloth for my sister-in-law. Pat was kind enough to send me the .wif for the shawl, which helped me figure out how to get the four edges as separate layers. While I still need to rework the structure in the center, here’s the basic idea. The edges will be dark green, the white area in the center will be solid white. The center will be a mix of pure white double weave and integrated cloth.

I’m planning to weave this up in Lunatic Fringe’s American Maid yarn, which is naturally colored cotton, in dark green and white unmercerized 10/2 cotton. I think that should be quite attractive. I’m also considering making a matching set of napkins in twill blocks, with a similar pattern, but that would have to be on a different warp. We’ll see if my interest lasts that long.

Meanwhile, the catsitter continues to send us photos of our adorable “kids”. She has a real talent for capturing their spirit. Here’s a great photo of Tigress sitting around looking regal (no doubt just before perpetrating something naughty!).

December 25, 2014 by Tien Chiu

Merry Xmas!

…at least, that’s what it says on my brand-new inkle-woven bookmark:

It must be Christmas. Here’s my mom’s Christmas cactus, loudly proclaiming the season:

But wait! It wouldn’t be Christmas without a tree!

Very true. Here’s my mom’s fabulous Christmas tree:

Mom's Christmas tree — Mom’s Christmas tree

I’m proud of Mom: every ornament on the tree is unique, handmade, and exquisitely beautiful. Here are a few of them:

some ornaments on Mom's tree — some ornaments on Mom’s tree

(Every year for the last 20-odd years, my mom’s hosted a Christmas ornament making party, where friends and family come over to make new ornaments from scraps of lace, bits of ribbon, sequins, beads, and pins. Up until a few years ago, she asked each participant to donate one of the ornaments they made to her tree – but now it’s so covered in gorgeous handmade ornaments that she has no room for any more!)

Wishing the best of the season to you and yours!