painted warp

May 18, 2011 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

The good and the bad (but not ugly!)

I finished warping, tied on, and started weaving. Then I noticed that the warps weren’t lined up properly (the first section was white, so it wasn’t obvious initially). I sighed, cut off the five inches I’d woven, advanced the bouts so they did line up, and then re-tied on. (This was more laborious than you’d think since the warp was in three layers). I wove another three inches, and realized that this threading won’t do. I had interspersed the bouts in wide stripes, hoping to make the stripes somewhat visible – this turned out to be a stupid thing to do because now the stripes dominate, giving a very rigid look. Which I should have known, and would have known if I’d simulated it in Photoshop first. *sigh* C’est la vie, I guess.

Here are photos of the warp, showing the striping:

painted warp, showing the striping. The colors are beautiful, and the striping is too, just not the effect I want!

painted warp, side view, showing off the stripes more clearly

Interestingly, the fabric looks quite different from the side and from the front – it has a beautiful iridescence to it, and a lovely glitter from the gold. All of which makes it that much more difficult to cut off and rethread the damn thing. Due to the way I’ve set up the warps, I think I will have to intersperse the warps in groups of four – will have to think that through – that would make each warp stripe 1/10″ wide. But if I can intersperse them every other thread, so much the better!

Fortunately it should be possible to recreate the cross and separate out the three layers of warp again. It will be a bit tricky, but feasible. However, I am NOT looking forward to re-re-rethreading the warp. I enjoy the warping process, but this is a little much! I want to get to weaving.

I have considered whether weaving off this 48″ panel would produce useful results – that would let me get some weaving done before having to rethread – but have reluctantly concluded that it will not. The vertical stripes kill the feeling of organic movement – the only question this sample would answer would be “Will the cloth be strong enough?” That is, admittedly, my primary question, but I want to be able to answer other design questions as well. So, tempting as it is to continue on, there is really nothing for it but to cut off and re-thread.

May 16, 2011 by Tien Chiu 4 Comments

I was out sick from work on Thursday and Friday, and feeling rather listless over the weekend, which is why you haven’t heard much from me. I did take a good chunk of time on Saturday to visit the DeYoung Museum and the Legion of Honor, which were showing “Balenciaga and Spain” and “Pulp Fashion”, respectively. The former is a collection of fabulous clothing by the French-Spanish couturier Balenciaga, with a few notes on the Spanish influences in his work; the latter is a group of interpretations of European costume (mostly dating back a century or three) done in paper by Isabelle de Borchgrave. I found “Balenciaga and Spain” to be fantastic – I wish I’d brought a notepad to scribble down some of the inspirations it gave me – but “Pulp Fashion” struck me as more a curiosity than something of intrinsic interest. It’s nice to know that you can make paper imitate cloth, but why not create the real thing? Of course, that wouldn’t be interesting enough to make it into a museum, which makes me wonder why. Is it part of the dividing line between “art” and “craft”? Seems rather odd.

Anyway, I have painted the warp, and here are some photos:

I should mention that there are four warp chains, arranged in pairs which are then painted different colors. In the top, I have done solid stripes of color across all four warp chains; in the second from the top, I’ve mixed the colors to give more gradual shading. The third features colors offset somewhat from each other, so the colors will blend when the warp chains are interspersed during warping; the last has mottled color. I’m not sure the last will be successful; it’s difficult to get both mottled color and good dye penetration. I do have some ideas for next time, though.

Anyway, given my general listlessness and lack of motivation, it should be no great surprise that I muffed the threading of the painted warp. It was a fairly complicated setup, with three sets of lease sticks, and I accidentally swapped some positions that I shouldn’t. This resulted in the inversion of two layers of warp and a thoroughly unworkable result – only discovered, of course, after I had finished threading and sleying, and was getting ready to tie on. I said some bad words, then pulled out all the gold threads, which will need to be rethreaded, interspersed with the tencel threads.

Other than that, some furniture alteration/rearrangement (my studio now has more open space and the desk has been lowered by 2″ to allow me to sit more comfortably at it), and shredding about 3 years’ worth of old credit card bills, not much got done over the weekend. Oh well; you can’t always have everything.

The good news is that I am feeling much better today, so am hoping to get the warp fully threaded and start weaving today. Maybe a little ambitious, but, well, we’ll see.

I leave you now with two truly impressive photos taken by my friend Julie at the Silk Museum in China:

Mystery loom at Silk Museum in China. How does this work?

This one intrigues me because there is no sign of treadles and there are a godawful number of frames. I suspect it may be a drawloom of some sort, but would love to know for sure; if anyone knows, can you please leave a comment to enlighten me?

And this one (according to other blogs) is a drawloom, operated by two people (!):

That has got to be the largest handloom I have ever seen. If you click to see the larger version you can see the person perched on top of the loom, manipulating the harnesses as the other person weaves.

February 18, 2011 by Tien Chiu 2 Comments

Pondering colors

I picked out a set of colors for the tiger-eye yardage today:

1st attempt at colors for tiger eye yardage

I was all set to use them, and then I decided to run a simulation in Photoshop. I’m glad I did, because this looks NOTHING like what I had in mind:

Mind you, it’s not unattractive, just not what I was envisioning. I wanted a cool, restful look in warm golds, beiges, and browns, and the orange “punches up” the excitement level too much.

What I am looking for is more like my first simulation:

So I took the core colors of the color gradients and put them into a “swatch” image:

Now, of course, I’m stuck. Color matching yarn to a monitor color is tricky to impossible, and my printer mangles colors, so I’m not quite sure how to get from A to B. Obviously it doesn’t have to be a perfect color match, but I’d like it to be close enough to get a similar effect. I am definitely going to have to dye sample skeins for this one! I have a few of the shades in my “library”, but not all.

Which means hauling out the pH meter and my sample skeins, syringes, etc. Just as well – I could use a refresher on precision dyeing. It’s been a couple months since the dye study group, and I want to make sure I don’t get rusty.

Plans for this weekend:

farmer’s market Saturday morning
run up to Sharon’s on Saturday afternoon for final fitting, interfacing evaluation
Stitches West (a knitting convention, but might have interesting yarns) Sunday AM with friends
Sunday PM – dye samples for tiger eye yardage, devise drafts for testing CompuDobby IV upgrade
Monday – drive up to AVL (7 hour round trip), test loom, hopefully take it home!

Yep, looks like a packed weekend.

February 17, 2011 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

Another week, another warp

The last muslin is complete (and yes, the stripes match PERFECTLY!), I’ve taken a day or two for R&R, and now it’s time to launch into the next thing. Any number of things I could do ““ quilt piecing, pattern drafting, fabric manipulation ““ the list goes on and on. But what I’ve decided to do is wind another warp. This one will also be painted, but in much more subtle tones ““ burnt oranges, golden yellow, rust, chocolate brown ““ all the colors of tiger-eye stone. It will have basically the same draft as the rainbow warp ““ which I need to do in order to test the sett using 30/2 silk instead of my custom-spun silk yarn ““ but will look radically different.

Here are two simulations of the possibilities:

I like the staggered stripes better ““ not that they will stay lined up neatly, anyway! In fact, with fewer colors, the odds are that the colors will “pool” at some point. I think that’s OK with me, though.

I haven’t yet decided what to do with this yardage, but I think another jacket may be in the works! Different pattern, of course. Or, I may gift it to Sharon as some small recompense for the help she’s given me. Mostly I just need to weave up another piece using the same draft and 30/2 silk, and I figure I might as well put a long warp on the loom and get a usable length of fabric out of it.

The plan is to wind the warp over the next few days, and then dye it over the weekend. I will probably use Lanaset (acid) dyes with citric acid, and batch it (let it sit at room temperature) for several days to “set” the colors. In this case I’m using acid dyes rather than fiber-reactives, because I will have to mix up some colors and my Lanaset sample set is much more extensive than my Cibacron F sample set. With a more extensive sample set, I can simply look up color combinations, rather than having to figure out the mixes from scratch.

That’s not all I’ll be working on, of course. I still need to develop test drafts to weave on my loom whilst at AVL, and I plan to study pattern drafting some more. I successfully drafted an armhole princess pattern yesterday, and plan to dive into armhole princess variations later this morning.

February 13, 2011 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

Interlude

First, the eye candy:

Completed handwoven painted warp yardage

After a frantic day and a half of winding, beaming, threading, and sleying, the new warp is on the loom. Or rather, it was on the loom, which is now disassembled and in the back of my Prius. I will make the 4-hour drive to AVL later today. I plan to stop on the way to talk to Sharon and strategize the cutting and sewing of the jacket. Since I don’t have the loom this week, it’s the perfect time to focus on sewing, and that’s precisely what I plan to do. (Also dyeing, quilting, and fabric manipulation, in between cleaning the house, which B. asked me to help with. I admit it has been months since I did any vacuuming!) I’m hoping to get the outer shell completed, at least.

And since I don’t have much to report beyond that, a little more eye candy:

First harbinger of spring - blooming violets

Yep, spring is here and doing its thing, right here in the Bay Area.