Tien Chiu

  • Home
  • About
    • Honors, Awards, and Publications
  • Online Teaching
  • Gallery
  • Essays
  • Book
  • Blog
  • Dye samples
You are here: Home / Archives for studio

March 23, 2021 by Tien Chiu

Dye studio

I set up the new dye studio yesterday, and I thought I’d take a photo during the ten seconds that it will actually look presentable:

New dye table and dye equipment
new dye table!

Needless to say, if you ever see a setup this neat from someone who claims to be a working dyer, run away quickly, because either the person just spent the last 40 hours scrubbing their studio to take the shot (who has time for that?!?) or they never actually use the studio for dyeing.

Or, of course, they just set up a brand-new studio and can’t resist showing everything off!

Actually I thought this would be a good opportunity to show you the equipment I use. So here it is.

Safety equipment for dyeing
Safety equipment – 12″ long, 10-mil nitrile gloves, respirator with P100 cartridges

Safety equipment first. The acid dyes and fiber-reactive dyes sold for artisan and home dyers are pretty darn safe (please don’t listen to folks who tell you otherwise), BUT any kind of dust is bad news for your lungs, some of the associated chemicals are lung irritants, inhaling fiber-reactive dyes can lead to allergies to the dyes, and it’s stupid to breathe in any kind of chemical if you don’t have to. If you’re working with dyes, wear a GOOD dust mask or a respirator when mixing up dye powders and/or auxiliary chemicals such as soda ash, citric acid, etc. It’s not because dyes are horribly toxic and can kill you, it’s just plain common sense, folks.

Because I work with dyes frequently, I wear a respirator with P100 cartridges. These happen to be good for organic vapors, too, but the dust protection is what’s important.

I also wear gloves. Again, common sense, but also because I mostly work with fiber-reactive dyes and repeated exposure to fiber-reactive dyes can result in developing an allergy to the dyes. Also because the detergent that is used to wash out the dyes can really dry out your hands, and the soda ash solution that you soak the yarns in for fiber-reactive yarn dyeing is highly alkaline and very bad for your skin.

I find that the usual type of glove, which reaches only to the wrist, doesn’t offer enough protection, especially when hauling things in and out of buckets of water, so I use 12″ long gloves. I don’t have a latex allergy, but I still prefer heavy-duty (10 mil) nitrile gloves as they are less likely to tear while hauling buckets around and also insulate my hands better when handling yarn that’s been in hot water.

Measuring and mixing equipment next:

Dye measuring equipment

You might be surprised to see both a set of highly accurate scales and the notoriously inaccurate teaspoons and tablespoons. That’s because I do two kinds of dyeing. The first is precision dyeing, where I mix up my own dye samples based on the 2,500 sample studies I’ve done, and expect highly accurate and reproducible results. That’s what the scale is for. The second is off-the-cuff dyeing, where I either use premixed dyes or just eyeball things and take whatever comes. For the first, I use the scales and “pure” dye colors for accurate results. For the second, I use Dharma Trading Company’s premixed dyes and their recommended numbers of teaspoons and tablespoons of dye to get an approximation of the color in their swatch charts.

Both approaches have their place and I use both methods. For immersion dyeing, I almost always use precision dyeing; for warp painting, tie-dye T-shirts, and so on, I generally use the off-the-cuff method. That’s because the precision dyeing swatches don’t always apply to surface design application methods, and Dharma’s formulas are designed for those methods. Also, accuracy isn’t usually critical for warp painting. But it really depends on what I’m after and whether I need precise color results.

I use plastic tablespoons and teaspoons because I can get a 20-pack for $10. When I’m painting warps I can easily wind up mixing 10 or more colors of powdered dye. If I only have one or two tablespoon measures, that adds up to a LOT of washing and drying, and interrupts the work. With 20 tablespoons, I can just grab another one, and toss the used ones into a bucket of water. By the time I’m done, all the dye has soaked off and it’s just a quick rinse, then put everything away.

The syringes are also a measuring tool. A VERY useful measuring tool, for liquid dyes. Once I’ve mixed up a stock solution of dye, I use syringes to measure out and mix smaller amounts. I get these from veterinary supply shops (you can also get them from Amazon, of course) – the 60 ml kind are the ones I use most, but I occasionally use 30 or even 10 ml syringes for really small dilutions.

The cups are for measuring auxiliary chemicals (soda ash and urea mostly, since I work mainly with fiber-reactive dyes), but occasionally for larger amounts of dye.

Multiple sizes of dye mixing cups in back. They’re clear and marked with different numbers of fluid ounces on the side. If I’m precision dyeing, I tare out the cups and add water by weight; if I’m off-the-cuff dyeing, I just pour in water until I reach the right number of fluid ounces, marked off on the side of the cup. Not terribly accurate, but if I wanted accuracy I’d go with the scale.

Next up, dye application tools:

dye application tools: foam brushes, masking film

For painting dyes onto warps or skeins of yarn, my tool of choice is the foam brush. They’re cheap, easy to clean, hold a lot of dye, and can be used to smoosh dye into the warp quickly. My one complaint is that they can hold too much dye, but if you squeeze it out against the side of the container a bit you can avoid the worst of the splooshes.

Behind the foam brushes is masking film. This is lightweight rolls of plastic that is used for painting houses (I think on wall trim) but which can be used under painted warps in place of plastic wrap, which I find difficult to control. There’s 9″ masking film, which I tried last time and found a little too narrow, and 12″ masking film, which I just found at Home Depot and am eager to test. Prior to that I used 10’x 12′ 4-6 mil drop cloth cut about 10-12″ wide, but I’d prefer something that comes in a continuous length. I’ll keep you posted on how this works out.

Dyes:

Procion fiber-reactive dyes

This is about half my collection of Procion fiber-reactive dyes. Mostly they’re from Dharma Trading Company. I buy from Dharma because they sell great dyes and they’re practically in my back yard – I can order from them and get it the next day. I order from Pro Chemical and Dye when I want dyes for precision dyeing, though, because that’s where I got my dyes for the dye samples so I want to be consistent about sources. Both are excellent companies and I wouldn’t hesitate to order from either.

I have a large collection of both premixed colors and “pure” colors from which I can mix my own colors on the fly. Some people say it’s better to mix your own, some people prefer premixed. I say it depends on what your priorities are at any given moment, and I use both approaches freely depending on what I’m trying to accomplish. Peace, folks.

So that’s the dye studio. I spent four or five hours setting everything up yesterday and mixing up 20 batches of dye with which to dye my warp, after which (of course) it was too dark to actually dye anything. So I’ve got everything prepped, and as soon as that darn sun comes up, I’ll be out to paint that warp!

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, dyeing Tagged With: studio

September 26, 2020 by Tien Chiu

New studio!

The Great Studio Move is complete! I spent two weeks schlepping stuff into the 8′ x 16′ storage container, which was completely full when I finished. Then I spent a week obsessively moving, sorting, and rearranging things in the garage. I got rid of a LOT of stuff. Gave away, donated, threw out – probably about three cubic yards of stuff, or about half a small dump truck full. I eliminated two whole shelving units’ worth of stuff!

I don’t have a “before” pic (frankly, it was too much of a cluttered pigsty to show to my best friend, let along anyone else), but here’s a pic from just before the insulation installers arrived. Grace is on the left, Maryam on the right.

Garage with everything moved out

Here’s the studio now, completely reorganized, seen with the big garage door open:

view of studio from the front of the garage
studio, viewed from front of garage

I’m still decluttering a bit; the stuff in the foreground will be going away soon.

Here’s the studio viewed from the side door:

A view of the studio from the side door. Maryam and Grace, my two looms, are facing each other.
studio, viewed from the side door

The studio looks pretty industrial, but that’s kind of inevitable when it’s in a garage with unfinished (but insulated!) walls, and sharing space with a home gym. At least black rubber mats are covering the concrete floor! It makes it much more comfortable to walk/stand on, and protects the floor against dropped dumbbells when weightlifting.

(Someone asked how many weasels I can lift now. Alas, I can’t do squats right now because we don’t have a squat rack at home, but we do have an Olympic barbell, and I’m pleased to say that despite COVID I can still deadlift 900 weasels! (That’s 225 pounds, for you non-weaselly folks.) That means I can go around picking up guys – that is, if they aren’t too heavy and are willing to lie around on the floor in a convenient position for deadlifting. (Hey, you gotta start somewhere. 😉 ))

As you can see, I turned Maryam around so she and Grace are now facing each other. I figure that way they can chat while I’m not around. 🙂

If you’re wondering what the gray thing on the floor in front of Maryam (left-hand loom) is, it’s a Topo Mat by ergodriven. It’s the best ergonomic floor mat I’ve ever encountered, and if you’ve got a standing desk, you should run, not walk, to your keyboard and order one immediately.

The funny knobs and things are designed to give you lots of different surfaces/angles to stand on to encourage you to shift your weight about as you stand. With it, I can comfortably stand all day long (barefoot!) at my standing desk, or (in this case) weave all day long standing at Grace or Maryam. No more back problems for me!

The one downside to the Topo mats is that they are very comfortable. Very, very comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that Someone has taken to napping on them:

Tigress sitting on my Topo ergonomic floor mat
My human thought she was clever, getting rid of the chair…Ha! Just because you don’t have a chair doesn’t mean I can’t still steal your chair.

Curses! Foiled again. And here I thought leaving the old chair around to sit on would keep the Queen and Mistress of the Universe satisfied. Tigress is far too clever a cat to fall for that trick, apparently. (Because half the fun is inconveniencing the human.)

Fritz, meanwhile, is not to be outdone. I was doing a photo shoot for the next Weave-Along (which launches in a week or so). I had closed the door to keep the cats out, but – like the Australians building their famous wall to keep out the rabbits – had neglected to notice that there was already a cat in the room. Fritz helpfully pointed this out to me shortly after I started shooting photos, and provided some assistance in setting up the shots. For some reason, the human was singularly unappreciative of his efforts, and he shortly joined Tigress outside the photography “studio”, but I did get a lovely photo of him in the interim:

The garden is going well. I just harvested five pounds of potatoes – about half the potatoes from this variety – and made five pints of intensely flavored Concord grape jam from our Concord grapes. I divided and replanted Egyptian walking onions and garlic. And I’ve harvested quite a few passion fruit this year (unlike the last few years when we got almost none)!

The best news for last: I cleared enough space in the garage to make way for a small treadle loom! Yes, that’s right – despite having two jacquard looms, I want a small treadle loom. There’s something enjoyable and peaceful about having a wooden loom, so a Baby Wolf is on her way to me! She’ll arrive on Monday. Pics, of course, on arrival. 🙂

Finally: I’m still clearing out space. I was trying to sell the tjaps as a single group, but that doesn’t seem to have worked, so I am now offering them individually for $50 each plus shipping (the “going rate” for good quality copper tjaps is $90 or so, and the animal tjaps I have are hard to find). Here are three photos of the groups – if you like one particular tjap and want a closer look, close-up photos of each tjap are in this Google Drive folder.

(Tjaps are copper stamps traditionally used for batik, but they can also be used with paint and lots of other things, or just collected as decorative items. They are beautiful!)

If you’re interested in one or more of them, email me at tien@tienchiu.com. If you want three or more, I’ll cut the price to $40 each – I really want to reclaim the space!

If you’re local, I also have a Bernina 830 Record sewing machine (the mechanical 830, not the electronic one) with lots of extra feet that I’m offering for $600. Pix here and here. I’ll throw in a homemade double-ended electric bobbin winder and a DeLonghi steam iron with separate boiler if you buy it. If no one local wants it I’ll consider shipping (at buyer’s expense).

I’ll conclude this post with an intriguing photo from the garden. Culinary ginger isn’t as showy as its ornamental counterparts, but I think its flowers are quite beautiful nonetheless. This photo is of the pots by the back door:

culinary ginger blossoms
(culinary) ginger flowers!

More on Monday, when the new loom arrives!

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving Tagged With: studio

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Information resources

  • Dye samples
    • Procion MX fiber-reactive dye samples on cotton
    • How to "read" the dye sample sets
    • Dye sample strategy - the "Cube" method
  • How-Tos
    • Dyeing and surface design
    • Weaving
    • Designing handwoven cloth
    • Sewing

Blog posts

  • All blog posts
    • food
      • chocolate
    • musings
    • textiles
      • dyeing
      • knitting
      • sewing
      • surface design
      • weaving
    • writing

Archives

Photos from my travels

  • Dye samples
    • Procion MX fiber-reactive dye samples on cotton
    • How to "read" the dye sample sets
    • Dye sample strategy - the "Cube" method
  • Travels
    • Thailand
    • Cambodia
    • Vietnam
    • Laos
    • India
    • Ghana
    • China

Travel Blog

Entertaining miscellanies

© Copyright 2016 Tien Chiu · All Rights Reserved ·

 

Loading Comments...