phoenix rising reloaded

September 10, 2014 by Tien Chiu 4 Comments

Finalized the book contract!

I had a phone call with my publisher today, and we finalized the terms of the contract. They’re sending me an addendum today, and as soon as it arrives and I sign/return it, we’ll be good to go! I’m super excited and can’t wait to talk to an editor about how to proceed.

The best thing about the conversation was that they mentioned that they’d been getting requests “from all over” for a book about the creative process…from the fashion institutes, from quilters, woodworkers, etc. – so that shows that there is a market for the book, and they’re well-positioned to take advantage of it. Hooray!

The other great thing is that they want me to make it broad, covering all kinds of crafts! That was my original vision for the book, but I was advised to pare it down to something more targeted. The one difficulty is that including examples from all kinds of crafts means getting in touch with prominent artisans in many different fields. But fear not! Schiffer publishes in many different fields of craft, and they said they could connect me up with people if I wanted. So I’m thinking of expanding the book’s scope beyond just my experiences with craft and my creative process, and incorporating works/methods from artists in many different fields.

That will, of course, mean more work. Quite a bit more work, actually. But it will produce a better book, so well worth the effort.

Meanwhile, I’ve made some progress on Phoenix Rising. I have finished threading (20+ hours) and sleying (~7 hours), and am now finishing up debugging the warp (17+ hours and still going). The last problem I’m having is getting the threads at the bottom to seat themselves properly – the ones on the back twenty shafts are tending to float up above the top of the beater when the first twenty shafts are raised, resulting in broken threads. But I at least have the threading errors, sleying errors, tension problems, loose threads, etc. (lots of etc.!) straightened out. It all took longer than usual because the threads are so fine I can barely see them, but I bought a headlamp and it has greatly sped up the process.

Here’s where I was this morning (note all the pins!):

You can just see the white areas in the two warps that mark the start of the next section. I’m quite pleased with myself – I managed to line them up almost exactly.

In cat-land, Fritz has also been in a state of surprised delight. As you may recall, Fritz has a shoe fetish – nothing pleases him better than sticking his entire head into a freshly-worn shoe, the better to savor the delicate bouquet. The stinkier, the better! And now you, too, can share his enthusiasm, through this short video of Fritz “appreciating” my shoes. Enjoy!

September 1, 2014 by Tien Chiu 2 Comments

Katazome madness

My friends Alfred and Carrie came over on Saturday, and we tried our hand at katazome, or Japanese stenciled paste-resist dyeing. I spent a day or two carving stencils for the katazome, the most ambitious of which was a paper-cut of a Chinese dragon (the original is out of a Dover book of Chinese paper-cuts). It took me four hours to carve, but was well worth it!

Here is the raw stencil, carved from synthetic stencil paper. The traditional stencil paper is made from handmade mulberry paper layered together with persimmon tannin and then smoked – but it is quite difficult to find, and I decided to reserve my one or two precious sheets of it for something really special, not just random experimentation.

Chinese paper cut for making katazome stencils

The stencil couldn’t be used like this, of course – it was far too delicate. So, following the instructions I got from Karen Miller during the katazome class I took with her, I put it in a frame of stencil paper, then put silk gauze over both paper cut and frame and sealed them together with paint. Here is the finished stencil:

The gauze supports and protects the stencil, so delicate patterns are quite feasible.

I also carved a number of other stencils – a horse, a squirrel, a baby zebra, and two goldfish – and layered them with gauze and paint as well.

Next I made the katazome paste – a mix of very finely powdered rice bran, glutinous rice flour, calx, and glycerine. The rice bran and rice flour need to be mixed up and then steamed for half an hour before adding the other ingredients, so I got that out of the way as early as possible.

Finally, we got to stenciling. Here is my very first attempt:

My friend Alfred was nice enough to set up an indigo vat for us, so after the paste dried, we dipped the shirt in the vat – twice, letting it dry between dips. The result, as you can see, was a lovely indigo blue. (Indigo vats are magic, by the way – the fabric looks yellow-green when it comes out, and over several minutes oxidizes slowly through gorgeous greens and teals to the final blue shades. I’m not a big fan of natural dyes, but indigo is special. I want to play more with indigo!)

Next I decided to get fancy. So I stenciled on some paste, let it dry, and applied paint over the paste. Then I covered the entire area with more paste, and dipped everything in indigo. The result was these lovely tote bags:

In case you are wondering about the colors, which are rather subdued compared to my usual brilliant palette, I was experimenting with natural pigments. One of B.’s hobbies is oil painting, and he likes to mix up his paints from scratch. So he has a lot of pigments, mostly from Sinopia, which specializes in (mostly) natural pigments. Since indigo is a more subtle and genteel color than my usual bright reds and oranges, I thought it might be nice to combine it with a more subdued, earthy palette. So I mixed some of B.’s pigments with a solution of three parts water, one part Lo-Crock Binder from Pro Chemical and Dye. That produced a beautiful, very thin paint perfect for stenciling.

Anyway, I was so delighted by the katazome results that I mixed up another giant batch of katazome paste today and spent the afternoon happily stenciling away. Some were intended to be stenciled directly onto pre-dyed fabric – like the dragon shirt below:

dragons, to be stenciled in gold against a tie-dye background

I will stencil gold paint and maybe some purple clouds over the dragons, then wash out the paste. I’m planning to do something similar with the next three shirts:

Finally, there’s one shirt that I plan to dye using indigo:

In this case the fish and the white background will become blue, and the pasted areas will remain white.

So stay tuned! Many magic things will be happening over the next few days.

Speaking of magic, here is a magical sight for you – the shadow weave warp is fully threaded!

I’m not sure it’s exactly 2800 – between the threads that broke while beaming and an inexplicable twenty-ish extra threads left over at the end, I lost the exact count awhile back. But it’s still a large effort!

After threading, I spent this morning sleying like a madwoman, with this result:

If I hadn’t gotten distracted by the deliciousness of katazome, I’d have been weaving today! But it may be delayed by a day or two while I finish off the katazome pieces.

Finally, the cats. How are the cats? They are just fine, thank you. In fact, Ms. Tigress is her usual exuberant self, as you can tell from this photo:

Normally she doesn’t molest paper towels when they’re in a plastic-wrapped package, but perhaps she was getting back at the pawparazzi for the rather unflattering photo in my last blog post. Regardless, the rest of the package now lives in a closet. It’s dangerous living with such a playful predator in the house!

August 9, 2014 by Tien Chiu 1 Comment

Finished the book proposal!

I finished revising the book proposal on Thursday. I hadn’t expected to have time for it, but since I get up three hours before anyone else (including my mom, who’s visiting), I turned out to have plenty of time. So now it’s off at the editor’s for a final look-through. I’ve also solicited feedback from a few friends. After that’s done, I’ll start approaching agents and publishers again.

I have decided to take down the book blog, by the way. I’ve changed the direction and target audience for the book, so the blog’s style and tone don’t match the book anymore (making it of less use when dealing with publishers). The writing in the book proposal is much more polished, too. So if you want to save any of the blog posts, now would be a great time to do so. I will leave the basic book site up, but the blog will disappear sometime in the next few days.

I’m so relieved to get the proposal done! It has been hanging over my head for the last few months. Now I can get back to the rest of my life…which is to say, weaving!

Despite some major mishaps, the warp is now beamed on. I put the light and dark warp onto separate beams so I can advance them separately if needed. Here’s a pic of the beamed-on warp:

I then realized I hadn’t created a draft for the shadow weave yet, so I made one. Here is the color simulation:

This particular draft is 800 threads wide by 800 picks long, which seems huge but is actually only a 10 x 10 swatch, since the warp will be sett at 80-90 epi.

Here is what the cloth should look like once it’s cut into flames on the bias:

Simulated flame made from shadow weave cloth

I’m debating whether the patterning is too much. The flames are already fairly complex, visually speaking – do I want to compound this by adding more visual texture? But I really like the look of the “heat waves”. I guess there’s only one way to find out – give it a try! If I need to, I can always go back to plain weave.

The next thing to do is thread up the loom. There are 2800 threads in this cloth, so this is apt to take awhile. Unfortunately, I have a second arm surgery scheduled for the 15th, which means it may be September before I actually get to weaving. I hope it goes smoothly and heals up fast – I’m really excited about this warp, and want to get to weaving!

June 8, 2014 by Tien Chiu 4 Comments

Shadows, weaving and otherwise

Thanks to all the people who emailed and commented about my friend Edna. She passed away this morning. I like to think that she is still pedaling her bike somewhere, in a place where all the hills are downhills and all the winds tailwinds. She was a great and generous spirit, and I will miss her.

Weaving-wise, I’m now planning out the shadow weave warp in earnest. I’m about 1/5 of the way through winding the warp (2800 ends), which means it’s time to think about how I plan to dye it and what color combinations to use. Also what dyes to use – and there’s the conundrum. I could use Procion MX fiber-reactive dyes, Cibacron F fiber-reactive dyes, or Lanaset acid dyes. All have pros/cons. I have a large collection of predyed samples in Lanset acid dyes, so can mix up colors quite precisely. But I would have to steam the painted warp, a process fraught with potential screwups, and the colors won’t be quite as bright or as colorfast than fiber-reactive dyes. I could use Cibacron F, in which I have a slightly less extensive sample collection. Or I could use Procion MX, which is what I used for my cloth samples. However, I don’t have any precision samples for MX dyes, so I’d have to mix using my best guess about proportions. (While keeping careful records for next time, of course.)

In addition to deciding what colors to dye, I also need to decide what combinations of colors to use, since there are two warps and two wefts. I think I will start with black and blood red, then go to brick and scarlet, and shade from there through orange and gold. I will have to do some more color simulations in Photoshop, but in the end the only way to really know what happens is to weave it. I hope I get it right!

I also need to think about the draft. Each of the flames will be quite narrow (3″ max) and will run along the diagonal. This means that, with my current draft, the “heat waves” will appear to run vertically. This would look awkward in a wider strip, but will it make a difference in such a narrow strip? I don’t know. Another thing for which I need to sample.

Another thing to consider is the spacing of the colors. Here’s the sketch I made on my iPad Air yesterday:

It shows a color-gradient fabric cut on the bias. I want a 24″ strip of fabric for the longest flame, which means I need a color gradient from orange to reddish black that happens over a space of twenty-four inches, when cut on the diagonal. Doing the math, that means I need a square 17″ x 17″, which will produce a 24″ diagonal. A bit more math suggests that each color transition should be about four inches long.

There is more math to be done, none of it hard, but in the end it boiled down to seven yards of warp: one yard each for five color-gradient sections, plus one for loom waste and one for sampling. Once I have it all wound, I will have to stretch it out and tie it in the precise and convoluted method I used for the color study. I am not looking forward to that, but it will have to be done.

And once that is done, I will need to knit blanks and dye the weft! This is truly going to be a labor of love.

I am, however, looking forward to the weaving part. I received two more Bluster Bay Honex-tensioned end feed shuttles last week, and they are truly gorgeous. Curly maple and bocote:

The grain and figuring are beautiful – the bocote reminds me of tiger eye, my favorite gemstone. And of course they are joy to use – I’ve tested them out already!

That brings my stock of Bluster Bay end-feed shuttles to six, which is way more than any weaver needs. But they are such beautiful shuttles, it’s hard to stop collecting them!

And, finally, here is a picture of Fritz the Mighty Warrior, engaged in mortal combat. Is it possible to look adorable, fierce, and downright silly at the same time? Maybe not for an ordinary cat, but the inimitable Fritz does it with ease.

Fritz in mortal combat with B.'s socks — Fritz in mortal combat with B.’s socks

June 7, 2014 by Tien Chiu 3 Comments

Good things and bad things

Good things may come to those who wait, but I prefer to lead off with them:

B. and I celebrated our (upcoming) fourth anniversary last night at BaumÃ©, a French restaurant in Palo Alto with two Michelin stars and a rep for innovative molecular gastronomy techniques. It did not disappoint; each of the eight dishes on the tasting menu was intriguingly conceived, marvelously flavored, and impeccably served. Here’s the menu, for the interested:

Friday's menu at BaumÃ© — Friday’s menu at BaumÃ©

Of particular note was the dessert. The lemon-cherry genoise with cherry chiboust thyme is what’s displayed in the first photo, and it was good – but the cherry-rose sorbet with flourless chocolate cake was simply amazing. I loved the tart intensity of the cherry tempered by the floral notes in the rose. I now have plans for combining cherry with rosewater in chocolates. I’m not sure how, precisely, and it may be tricky since I’m already committed to a strawberry-rose flavor – but it was so heavenly I want to include it somehow. Plans are already afoot for making Bing cherry jam – or maybe marmalade – and maybe tucking in a bit of rosewater. Yum!

Also afoot are plans to make boysenberry and marionberry jams. There’s a farm in Fairfield (about an hour and a half away) that just announced the opening of their pick-your-own-berries season. I’m hoping to run up there next Saturday and pick pounds and pounds of berries, then spend another weekend making jam. (Yes, I know it’s a distraction from weaving, but such a delicious distraction!)

On the weaving front, I have discovered that my newly-purchased iPad Air is also excellent for sketching. Here is a crude rendition of the fabric color gradations and dimensions, scribbled on the iPad in a minute or two:

It’s not setting the world on fire as Art, but it doesn’t need to. It was mostly an attempt to figure out how wide and how long each panel of fabric should be. I eventually decided to make the panels 30″ wide and about 28″ long – that should give me room to cut out lots of dangly flames for the skirt. I’m going to make five panels plus an extra yard for sampling plus a yard for loom waste – rounding off and adding some space between the panels, that will make a seven yard warp, which ought to be plenty. I’ve started winding the warp already; it will go on after I decide what to do with the color study warp and the fly shuttle (another story, best left for another time).

So much for the good things. The bad thing: Edna, a friend of mine from AIDS Lifecycle days, is in the hospital in critical condition. She suffered a heart attack yesterday while bicycling from San Francisco to Los Angeles as part of AIDS Lifecycle 2014. She was on her bike at the time the heart attack happened, and crashed into the pavement as a result, adding major head injury to the cardiac arrest. She is currently on life support, and the prognosis is pretty grim.

Edna and I were doppelgangers on the AIDS Lifecycle rides we did together – we were both short Asian female riders, rode at roughly the same pace, and people often mistook one of us for the other. She is an amazing woman with tons of energy, spirit, and generosity. This year she raised over $10,000 for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, in her 13th AIDS Lifecycle ride. I hope she makes a quick and full recovery, but the odds are pretty long against her. So please send any prayers, healing energy, or just plain well-wishes her way. I’d like to see her pull through this, so anything that nudges the universe in that direction would be most welcome.