phoenix rising wall hanging | Tien Chiu's Blog

December 13, 2013 by Tien Chiu

Third time’s (almost) the charm

I finished the last piece on this warp yesterday. I made some changes from the previous phoenix rendition, adding an orange-red shade to the dyeing and using a bamboo weft yarn rather than silk. I really like the results:

Adding the red-orange back into the mix produces much better depth of color than rendition #2, which was entirely yellow and orange:

And the darker background in #3 is definitely better than the first iteration:

Finally, using different fibers for warp and weft reveals the woven pattern in the phoenix section – the two fibers take the dye differently, so the pattern shows more. Consider these two closeups – one in silk warp and bamboo weft, and the other in 100% silk:

Closeup of second phoenix rendition, silk warp and weft

Third phoenix - closeup. Silk warp, bamboo weft. — Third phoenix – closeup. Silk warp, bamboo weft.

There is much more pattern definition (and a richer texture) in the silk/bamboo version.

Unfortunately, there are two stains on this phoenix rendition – one in the background at the middle of the piece, and a more serious one on the phoenix tail:

It’s still a beautiful piece, but it’s not a show piece. But this is not entirely a bad thing – the phoenix still feels kind of flat and uninteresting to me, so it will give me something to experiment on. I am considering either embellishments or quilting, leaning towards quilting. That will add some three-dimensionality and allow me to mark subtle lines via the quilting stitches, without drawing attention too far from the fabric. The trouble with embellishments is that as soon as I start adding them, people will look at the embellishments rather than the cloth. I did pick up a book on beading for quilts that I hope addresses how to manage this, and will read it on my flight out. I am also reviewing some of my earlier design exercises from the quilt design class in hopes of sorting out more.

And that’s it for now! I’m flying out to Minneapolis today to pack up the loom. I’m really looking forward to seeing my prize in person. I’ll be in Minneapolis for a few days, flying back to the Bay Area on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, your kittens for today:

A friend came over, and the kittens were ecstatic over her long boot laces.

December 7, 2013 by Tien Chiu

Defrosting the loom

It has been record-breaking cold out here – which, in my area, means it actually drops below freezing for a few hours in the wee hours of the night. Tonight is predicted to be about 30 degrees. For most of you, that’s probably a pleasantly crisp winter day, but around here it can cause all sorts of havoc – bursting water pipes, dead or severely damaged trees, and so on. Plus massively increased heating costs, because many houses (including ours) were built without insulation. (Our climate is so temperate that it is really only needed a few days a year.)

Since my loom lives in an unheated garage, it was probably about 45 degrees yesterday when I set out to weave. The dobby fan was not happy. (Probably the lubricant had solidified.) So I had to defrost the dobby box with a hair dryer and put a space heater underneath (set on low) to get the loom working. Fortunately, after defrosting the loom worked just fine! But I am a bit puzzled about how to defrost my soon-to-be-acquired new loom in similar circumstances, since its dobby box is located six feet off the floor. Oh well. Another problem for another time.

Anyway, once I got the fan working, things progressed smoothly, and I wove another two yards of pseudo-fabric. It looked like this:

(Yes, that’s my weaving studio. Messy and industrial-looking, but it works fine for me!)

I’ve since treated it with soda ash solution, and am letting it dry. Since it is both cold and rainy, this will probably take two days. So I’m guessing that I won’t be able to apply the dyes until tomorrow, which means no weaving until Wednesday or Thursday. Since I fly out on Friday to disassemble, ship, etc. the new loom, this probably makes it the last warp on the current loom. *snif* I’ll miss that little loom, even with a major upgrade. It and I have been together for quite some time, and despite its quirks I love it dearly.

What will I do while the warp is drying, dyeing, and drying again? Work on two things: the book and the website. The website is rather haphazardly organized, and needs to be revamped to reflect what I am up to now. This means changing the navigation, which is easy enough once I figure out what I want to change.

A more interesting question is whether to merge the book site with my personal site. I am inclined to say “yes”. So I will likely make the Creating Craft blog a subset of my personal blog, and I will probably take down many of the Creating Craft posts so as not to spook potential publishers. If you want to save copies of the posts for your personal use, do it now.

And I want to reorganize the front page of my site. This is a custom PHP template, so doing this involves coding PHP, which I’m not very good at. So this may take awhile.

For the book, I want to substitute some meatier chapters into my book proposal, to give potential agents/publishers a better idea of what the book can do. That, of course, means writing them up from the blog posts. I plan to do a good chunk of that work while I’m traveling to Minneapolis. I’ll be there from Friday to Tuesday morning, and am uncommitted for most of that time. It is going to be Way Too Cold for me to go outside for the fun of exploring – I looked at the weather forecast, and it’s positively gruesome (at least for a Californian). A high of -1 Fahrenheit? Twenty degrees I can sort of process, but minus one is completely beyond my imagination. If the gods had meant humans to live somewhere that cold, they would never have created California. Or at least my region of California. T’ain’t natural, I tell you.

Meanwhile, the kittens seem to be acquiring vices. I really must counsel Fritz on the dangers of binge drinking:

He does look happy, though! Hopefully he woke up without a hangover. 🙂

December 4, 2013 by Tien Chiu

Fire and ice

It’s been cold around here – not quite cold enough to make ice, at least where I am (this is the Bay Area after all), but cold enough to be setting some record lows. And it has been quite chilly weaving in an unheated garage, so I am very pleased to have some fire to show you:

This one is woven with 30/2 silk. First I pre-wove a loose “fabric” with a superfine silk weft, then stenciled the “cloth” with black dye. Then I removed the temporary weft, re-wound the warp onto the warp beam, and wove it off in 3-1 broken twill. Finally, I overdyed it using low-water immersion dye techniques to give the phoenix some fire.

There are quite a few technical issues with this version, so it is definitely not a show piece. However, I learned a lot while making it, and am pretty certain that The Final Version is no more than two or three iterations away. I may even finish it on this warp!

The big question in my mind is still the heat waves. I feel that the plain 3-1 broken twill background is a bit dull, even with the fiery overdyeing. I would like to put a bit more motion into the background, without being overwhelming. But will the “heat waves” I was designing in my last post do the trick?

Well, I still don’t know. Here’s what the heat-wave swatch looks like:

It’s surprisingly subtle – a thin line of 2-2 broken twill against a background of 3-1 broken twill.

And here’s what it looks like up against the full-sized sample (click for the big version, it’s barely visible in the small version):

heat waves swatch against phoenix - full piece — heat waves swatch against phoenix – full piece

For those too lazy to click, here’s a closeup:

heat waves swatch against phoenix - closeup — heat waves swatch against phoenix – closeup

I alternate between liking and not liking the heat waves, so I’ve hung up the piece (and the swatch) next to my computer desk so I can “live with” both versions for awhile. Every couple of minutes I glance over to take it in, think about it, and then go back to what I’m doing. I’ve got a couple of days before I need to make a decision, so I can waffle for awhile.

Tomorrow morning I’m going back into the studio to weave another two yards of pseudo-cloth and prepare it for another round of stenciling. The stenciling process takes three days to complete: one day to apply the soda ash solution and let it dry, one day to apply the dyes and let them cure, and one day to rinse out and dry the warp. Then I have to remove the temporary weft and roll it back onto the beam before I can weave it. So it really takes about four or five days to weave two yards of cloth! Very slow work, but I’m really enjoying it.

Because there are built-in pauses between periods of activity, I’m also planning on doing two long-put-off projects: reorganizing my website, and working on the book. I had felt burned out on the book, so set it aside for several months, but I’m feeling enthusiastic about it again for the first time since July. I’m currently taking stock, and will probably resume work on converting blog posts to chapters. I may also move the book blog back into my personal website, consolidating the two sites into one. Lots to consider and work through!

Finally, if you’re wondering why it’s been five days since the last blog post, well, it’s because most of the time, my computer looks like this:

And when it doesn’t, the chair in front of it looks like this:

So what’s a girl to do? I just smile, pat them on the head, and head for the loom.

November 29, 2013 by Tien Chiu

Making heat waves

I’ve now wound three-quarters of the warp, which means it’s time to think about threading. While the bulk of my sampling will be in a simple 3-1 twill or broken twill, I’m also considering trying out a wavy background design to see if I can get the effect of a bird flying through heat waves. So here is the preliminary draft I’m considering:

"heat waves" weaving draft, on a straight draw and on a networked threading — “heat waves” weaving draft, on a straight draw and on a networked threading

The turquoise line divides the two threadings I’m considering- a straight draw on the left and a very lightly networked threading on the right. The networked threading is generated using straight lines of varying angle, from shafts 1 to 24. I wanted a little variety in the spacing between lines, but not so much variety as to be distracting.

I’m debating which I want to use. The straight draw is more versatile for some other things I’d like to try, but I think the networked threading looks more dynamic. In both cases I suspect that the lines will just muddy up the phoenix (unless I can get the curves to go parallel to the curves in the phoenix – which would take considerable calculation and fuss), so I’m not inclined to spend too much time setting up the trial. I’ve got another half-day or so to think about it, though – it will take me that long to wind and beam the warp.

Finally, I have apparently been using my paper pirns All Wrong for the last several years. Here’s an educational video from Tigress, to show you the proper way to use a pirn. (She likes it so much, she’s been carrying it around all day!)

November 24, 2013 by Tien Chiu

Finished the latest sample

By weaving like a maniac, I have finished the next sample. It came out quite well – here’s a photo of the undyed sample hanging next to the stencil:

stenciled warp, fully woven, with stencil hanging beside it

It came out quite well – there is minimal distortion, except for the feathering every fourth thread which I mentioned in a previous post. And I like that feathering, as it blurs the edge and gives the impression of fire.

Here is a closeup of the piece, so you can see the feathering:

I then simmered it in soapy water (to take out the excess dye) and threw it into a low-water immersion dyebath. Here’s what it looks like now:

I don’t particularly like the result of overdyeing, for a couple of reasons. The top reason is because the black background simply isn’t dark enough to mask the overdyed pattern. I want subtle visual texture and a reddish tint in the background, not obvious pattern. As a result, the phoenix does not stand out as strongly as I would like.

The second reason is a color issue, which I had more or less expected but which I wasn’t sure how to solve. Yellow + black, when mixed, produce a greenish tint. As a result, the “flames” in the background look greenish, which I definitely don’t want.

The final reason is that I don’t like the scarlet in the tail. The contrast against the other colors is too high, producing a distracting pattern. I like the patterning in the yellow-orange portion at the top (which I deliberately kept lighter than the rest) a lot better.

Still, it’s pretty, and I learned a lot from making it. I feel like I’m (almost) ready to make the Real Thing. There are just one or two experiments I’d like to do first. I want to try weaving it in a 3-1 broken twill, so the warp dominates on the front side. That will let me get the background darker. I also want to try weaving in plain weave but with a very thin weft, 120/2 silk perhaps. And I’d love to try it with a wavy pattern, network drafted perhaps, to give the impression of heat waves.

None of those experiments can be done on the current warp, so I’m taking the remnants off. I’ve already started winding the next warp. This will be 30/2 silk sett for twill (36 ends per inch). Switching to a heavier thread means no more broken threads – important since repairing broken threads or knots in a stenciled warp is a real pain in the butt. And I’m planning to beam it on back to front, instead of my usual sectional warping, because I want to leave the raddle in place – it will help when I roll the stenciled warp back onto the warp beam. I’ve currently wound 1/8 of the warp, and am hoping to have it in place and ready to start dyeing/weaving by Thanksgiving. I’ll start with some smaller samples, then weave the bigger piece.

I have also made progress on figuring out the loom shipping. I spent a good chunk of time on Friday frantically researching options – thanks to everyone, especially Wee, for the advice! I’ve concluded that the cheapest way to ship the loom is to fly out, break it down, pack it into a wooden crate, and have a freight service haul it to California. It will cost about $1000 for the crate + shipping, plus another $1000 for plane flights, hotel, rental car, packing materials, etc. Even adding $2000 to the price of the loom, it’s still a steal.

About the loom: it’s a 48″, 40-shaft AVL Ultimate Dobby Loom, with E-lift. The UDLs were an early attempt at 40 shafts, and the E-lift is also one of the earliest electronic lifting mechanisms, but it is currently in working order. I did check with AVL, and it is upgradable and/or repairable if necessary. I can’t resist the prospect of weaving on 40 shafts – even if it means upgrading to a much larger loom. (My house is not big, so fitting a huge loom is a real stretch. I will probably have to do some destashing and serious rearrangement to fit it into the garage.)

Finally, Fritz and Tigress have now been with us for two months and two days, and have literally doubled their weight in that time. (Tigress now weighs 5.75 lbs, Fritz 4.75.) According to my calculations, that means that a year from now we’ll have a pair of 300-pound cats – mighty hunters indeed! (That, of course, is why you should never calculate a curve from two data points. 😉 ) More seriously, in another few months, they’ll likely be full grown (hopefully not 300 pounds, though!). All the more reason to cherish their adorable kittenhood.

And here are the adorable teenage tykes:

Fritz still looks a bit kittenish (especially with those enormous ears!), but Tigress now looks like a normally proportioned cat, except she’s a lot smaller.