Tien Chiu

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Puzzling over photos

Our wedding photographer has been hard at work, reviewing and pulling the cream-of-the-crop photos out for our viewing. It will still be a few weeks before she has the complete set together, but she gave us the proofs for review a day or two ago. Because I’ll need a few photos for the Convergence exhibit, I asked her to send me a few in advance of the full batch. Here they are:

Tien walking down the aisle
Me, walking down the aisle
Tien with harpist
me next to the harpist
Tien and B. (formals)
Me and B. (formals)
2nd shot of Tien and B. (formals)
me and B. again

I’m still debating which photo(s) to send to Convergence. I figure I might be able to get one, two at most into the display (if any go in at all, which I don’t know yet). There should really be one of me by myself (showing off the dress) and one of me and B. (the happy couple). So, one of the first two, and one of the last two. But I really can’t decide. The first photo is the most dramatic (walking down the aisle), the second photo is a better shot of the dress. And I can’t pick between the second two at all.

Given that this would be an exhibit display for a major weaving conference (i.e. Convergence), which photo or photos would you pick? I really haven’t a clue, so thoughts would be most appreciated.

B. and I have been having fun in Vancouver, despite a twisted ankle that is keeping us from more strenuous activities. But we’ve been to museums, the Vancouver aquarium, the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens, a salmon hatchery, and quite a few other places – plus had dinner and some wonderful conversation with some local weavers yesterday night. We fly home tomorrow – and, true to form, our last stop is going to be a well-known chocolate shop. 🙂

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Wedding bells

I woke up well before dawn the morning of the wedding, and was too nervous to go back to sleep. Instead, I got up, checked my pre-wedding checklist, loaded up the car, wrote six thank-you notes, printed out my wedding speech and our vows, got breakfast at the local bagel shop, and then walked around the block for twenty minutes, reading my vows and speech out loud, so I wouldn’t stumble over them at the wedding.

At seven-thirty, I went to the makeup artist, and spent two hours there, getting my face painted and my hair done up. The process was far more complex than I’d expected “ first a primer to make the makeup last longer, then concealer, foundation, and powder. Then some slightly darker makeup to slim my face and make the cheekbones more prominent, and to darken the curve of the jaw.

After that, she applied blush, which looked too heavy to me, but she explained that the blush powder would fly away over time, so she needed to apply more to make it last. Then on to the eyes “ first a special primer, eye makeup foundation, powder, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and false lashes. I watched, fascinated, as she transformed my face completely. Truly, artistry!

The hair proved a little awkward. The florist’s headpiece, a wonderful confection of gardenias and orchids, turned out to be way too large – we really needed a single flower, not an entire headband. So we did the rest of the hair, drawn over to the left side of my head, pinned with the gold double-happiness pin, and cascading down in soft curls down the front, and agreed that I would stop by the supermarket on the way to the wedding and buy some flowers there.

B. and I finally left at 9:30am. We arrived at the ceremony site a little later than anticipated, and many guests were already there. Thankfully, most of the wedding party had already arrived, and as soon as I arrived, they fanned out in all directions, setting things up and freeing me to focus on my own preparations.

I had planned to have my mother help me into the dress, but she was unfortunately ill with food poisoning, and (much to my disappointment) was unable to attend the wedding. So instead I chose my dear friend Lena, who had moved to India some five years ago and had flown in for the wedding. She helped me fix a few makeup smudges, fix a single gardenia bloom into my hair, and step into the dress. I was terrified that I was going to rip the hem or something, but she settled me down and got me into the strapless bra, the shoes, and the dress.

Finally, Lena took down the coat, held it for me, and carefully fastened the three hooks and eyes in front. She handed me my bouquet, a beautiful confection of white lilies and roses, accented with pale gold roses and feathery ferns, tied with a gorgeous gold ribbon “ and turned me to the mirror.

I gasped. As much and as hard as I’d worked on the outfit, I was totally unprepared for the vision in the mirror”the beautiful, regal bride in the mirror couldn’t possibly be me. Could it?

I could have gazed in the mirror all day, unbelievingly, but the guests had taken their places, and my friend Herve, who was officiating, had started speaking. I scurried over as the others started their procession. First B.’s parents, then B., then my father, brother, and mother’s husband, then”

“me.

Walking down the aisle was indescribable. Momentous, glorious, and yes, triumphal. A year’s labor for the wedding ensemble, now shown in all its glory, and a wonderful tribute to love and to B.. The harp played “Trumpet Voluntary” as I made my way slowly down the aisle and turned to face the man I love.

Friends and family spoke, but I hardly heard them, being too occupied gazing at the man I was about to marry. My friend Lena, who is a Tibetan lama, blessed us with holy water. And then it was time for us to read our speeches to each other, and exchange vows.

B.’s words to me were beautiful, heartfelt, and romantic. I started misting up as he said them to me. Then I read my words for him “ a free verse poem “ and by the time I reached the end, I was crying tears of joy. Then we exchanged vows, and rings. Finally, our officiant read out the words that bound us, and we kissed for the first time as husband and wife.

After being presented to the guests, we departed down the aisle to the joyous strains of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”. We had a lovely lunch “ old friends and new, family meeting family for the first time. The wine was wonderful “ my brother, a vintner, had brewed four different wines for the occasion, and my sister-in-law, a graphic designer, had created beautiful custom wine labels for us. We spent time at each table, receiving congratulations and visiting with the guests.

Too soon, it was time to leave the reception. We stopped by the hospital to visit my mother “ collecting stares as the newly wedded couple in full bridal regalia sailed through the hallways “ bringing the wedding to her, since she wasn’t able to be at the wedding. (Fortunately, she was feeling much better, and was discharged shortly thereafter.)

After a dinner with family and close friends, the day drew to a close. We said farewell to friends and family, collected a few last well-wishes, and headed home to get some sleep before heading off on our honeymoon in Vancouver. We were exhausted, triumphant “ and married.

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wedding dress


handwoven wedding dress, three-quarter viewhandwoven wedding dress Handwoven wedding dress, coat portion - "Eternal Love"

In April 2009, I took a workshop on designing fabrics from Sharon Alderman at the Conference of Northern California Handweavers.  For the workshop, we were asked to come up with an idea for a finished piece, so we could choose yarns and design the fabric to suit the finished work.

I was racking my brains, wondering what would be challenging enough to need the expertise of a legendary weaver, and finally decided to design what I had always wanted to make: a handwoven wedding dress!

I was not engaged at the time, so this was a purely theoretical project.  I had a pattern that I really loved, and a vision of the pattern with a ribbon of Chinese double-happiness characters going down the front opening, and Asian “eternity knots” in the body of the dress.

I took them to the workshop, and wove this on my 24-shaft AVL Workshop Dobby Loom:

Sample for handwoven wedding dress
Sample woven at CNCH

(The Chinese double happiness character symbolizes a happy marriage – it is the character for happiness, written twice and merged into a single character: two individual happinesses merged into one happiness = a happy marriage.)

I then returned home and blogged about the samples I’d made, emphasizing that B. and I were not engaged, and that this was a purely theoretical wedding dress.  B. read my blog, and said, “You know, I really wouldn’t mind being married to you…”

Not the most romantic proposal, but…the wedding was on!!

I started sampling for the dress and coat, drafting several different patterns and dyeing various weft colors.  Because I had a very narrow loom, my cloth would be at most 24″ wide, so I had to weave double the required yardage.  I decided to weave 16-20 yards of each fabric.

My first effort was disastrous.  I had only been weaving for a bit over 2 years when I started the project, and I innocently sett the 60/2 silk warp at a whopping 96 ends per inch!  That turned out to be far, far too dense, producing a very sticky warp.  And I wound on the warp too loosely, resulting in nightmarish tension problems.  Despite all this, I wove off ten yards of the warp in about six weeks.  Then I took some time for contemplation, and realized that the fabric was too flawed to use.  I set it aside, having learned a lesson in what not to do.

Back to the drawing board.  This time, I got troubleshooting help from some very experienced weavers, who helped me solve my tension problems and my sett problems, and sett the warp at 72 ends per inch.  This was still quite dense, but wove off much better than the previous warp, and I successfully completed 16 yards of it.

Handwoven wedding dress fabric

Now I was faced with a difficult challenge.  I wanted to sew this wedding ensemble “the right way”, using couture techniques.  But I didn’t have any experience with couture, and this would not be something I could learn successfully from a book.  So I started networking around the local weaving and sewing guilds, looking for a teacher who could help me sew the dress.  After several false starts, I found Sharon Bell, a fashion school professor emeritus and former couturier, who agreed to help me.  Her contributions have been invaluable, from the perfect fit of the garment to some of the interior construction to endless suggestions on how to make it better.

We sewed muslin after muslin, perfecting the fit, until we were finally happy with the fit.  Sharon made tiny changes, sometimes as little as an eighth of an inch, until she was happy with the fit and flow of the garment.  Finally, it was time to cut into the fabric.  I took a deep breath, a second deep breath, and cut into the fabric I had spent months weaving:

First cut into my precious handwoven!

At the same time I was sewing, of course, I was also sampling and weaving the coat fabric.  I had settled on a pattern of Tibetan eternity knots, woven in silk and a very fine metallic gold thread.  This warp was sett less densely than the dress fabric, at “only” 60 ends per inch, and wove off beautifully.

Meanwhile, on the dress, we had started constructing the garment.  Sharon constructed a “mini-corset” inside the dress, which would a firm foundation to the off-the-shoulder design.  Once the interior construction was done, I started applying some gorgeous imported French Alencon lace that my future mother-in-law had bought for me, enhanced by real 4.5mm Akoya pearls – the same cultured pearls that you would find in fine jewelry.

handwoven wedding dress with lace and pearls
handwoven wedding dress with lace and pearls

As the dress began taking shape, we started work on the coat as well.  I had a pattern, Butterick 4732, that I really loved:

I wanted the double-happiness ribbon to run down the front of the coat, but we would need to shape the ribbon considerably around the neck edge.  Because of this, I couldn’t weave it in silk; the warp would have to be wool.  I spent nearly a month ordering samples and running around after false leads until Laura Fry, a weaving friend of mine, very nicely sent me some samples of Silk City 2/28 merino, and then sent me the larger quantity that I would need to weave the ribbon.  It worked! and we assembled the coat successfully.

handwoven wedding dress, closeup
handwoven wedding coat, closeup

Now, close to completion, we started work on the tedious handwork.  Much of the work in couture is in the details: how the seams are finished, how the hem is done.  As a small example, there are five rows of stitching in the dress and coat hems, four of which must be stitched by hand!  I was giving thanks to every god in range that I had chosen a simple, A-line pattern, not a big floofy skirt with miles of hem.

In all, this project took almost exactly one year of intensive work to finish, approximately 1000 hours of hard work, between weaving and sewing.  Is it worthwhile?  Absolutely!!  The finished pieces are gorgeous – beautifully symbolic, museum-quality garments, worthy of what promises to be a wonderful marriage to the man I most love on this Earth.

The symbolism of this coat is threefold:

  • the double-happiness symbols in the front of the coat represent happiness in marriage
  • the eternity knots in the body of the coat represent eternity, and wisdom
  • the three-strand Celtic braid pattern in the dress stand for “eternity” in Celtic culture

Together, they symbolize a wish for eternal happiness in marriage.

Here are some photos from

our wedding day:

Me on our wedding day
Me on our wedding day
Me and B.
Me and B.

 

In the gazebo
In the gazebo

I am very pleased to say that the dress is now part of the permanent collection at the American Textile History Museum, in Lowell, Massachusetts. It was on display in 2013 as part of their “Behind the Veil: Brides and Their Stories” exhibit. Here are two photos from the display:

Me with my dress at the American Textile History Museum exhibit
At the American Textile History Museum exhibit opening
Plaque at the exhibit
Plaque at the exhibit

Finally, here are some of the in-progress photos:

Photos of the coat:

Photos of the dress:

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Top honors

It turns out that I took quite an array of prizes: my “Black Jewel” and “Ocean Sunset” shawls took first and second place in the accessories division, my “Lava Flow” scarf won second place in the neckwear division, and my wedding-dress won…ta-daaa…Best in Show in the Fashion Show!

I can’t resist sharing some photos of the winning pieces.  The ribbons, which are amazing, were woven by the equally amazing Lillian Whipple, Mistress of Fine Threads:

"Black Jewel" shawl - first place, accessories division
"Black Jewel" shawl - first place, accessories division
"Ocean Sunset", second place in the accessories division
"Ocean Sunset", second place in the accessories division
"Lava Flow", second place in the neckwear division
"Lava Flow", second place in the neckwear division

I am very proud of having won ribbons with everything I entered, and of course “Best in Show” for the dress.  More important, I think people really appreciated the dress…I saw a lot of people oohing and aahing over the exhibit, reading my little one-pager about the dress, or reading the photo book on the making of the dress.  And at times it felt like every single person at the conference had stopped to compliment me on the dress!  I must say, it was wonderful (if a little overwhelming) to get so much positive feedback on the piece.

The curator of the San Jose Quilt and Textile Museum was also at the show – I asked the folks at the SJQT Museum booth to ask her if she’d be interested in the dress after the dust settles, haven’t heard anything, may try to find her at the show tomorrow if she’s there.

Finally, I got a chance to see Kati Meek’s new printing of “Warp with a Trapeze and Dance with Your Loom” (an excellent book, incidentally).  She had asked me to write a blurb for the back cover, and I was of course honored to do so.  But I didn’t realize she’d actually printed it!

"Warp with a Trapeze", with my blurb on the back cover
"Warp with a Trapeze", with my blurb on the back cover

Finally, here’s a gallery of (a) my little wedding-dress exhibit (amazing how much better the dress/coat look when properly mounted!), and (b) the many amazing pieces at the show.

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Appraised!

Got the appraisal back.  You ready?  Replacement value for the coat is $9,900 and the dress is $16,800.  (The actual value, of course, is “priceless”.)  That’s time and materials only, no retail markup.  In this particular case there is no retail equivalent, so T&M made sense.  Total value, $26,700.  That’s as much as my CAR cost!!!

The other good news is that this is automatically covered under my renter’s insurance, without the need for a separate rider.  I bumped up my coverage to $50,000, so I’ll be fine if (heaven forbid) anything happens to it.

Meanwhile, I have not been idle.  I spent four or five hours creating a photo book about the dress, showing interim stages from start to finish.  Did you know you can now create a custom photo book, have it printed, and pick it up within an hour, for only $30?  Just google “photo book” and one of the places that has a retail outlet (I did mine with Ritz Camera).

At any rate, the book came out beautifully.  It’s for the exhibit, and I intended it to be short enough for someone to flip idly through while browsing the galleries.  It’s very heavy on photos, with short and simple text, and you can read the entire thing in 5-10 minutes.  (It’s only 20 pages long.)  I’m glad I spent so much time blogging about the dress, though ““ I have a lot of great photos of the dress-in-progress, so there was plenty to select from when I made the book.  I wish I could share it with y’all, because it’s a great little book, but unfortunately there’s no option for viewing it online.  I ordered four copies ““ one for me, one for Sharon, and one each for my mom and future-mother-in-law.  I may order a fifth, for my sister-in-law, who I’m sure would love to have it.

I also got together with some wonderful friends who are visiting from India.  They brought me a beautiful silk sari (with the instructions that I should cut it up and make something beautiful from it, and not feel guilty about it!) and some lovely 3/15 nm silk yarn, which I will have to use in a special project.  We spent hours chatting and I wound up getting home quite late, so I will have to catch up on sleep tonight!

Anyway, I sold my spinning wheel to them, because they needed one and I hadn’t used mine in years (except for skeining yarn).  With the money from that, I just ordered a Triple Electric Skeinwinder from Crazy Monkey Creations!  I debated long and hard about whether to order the 1.5-yard or 2-yard version, and finally decided that I needed space much more than I needed 2-yard skeins.  So I bought the 1.5-yard winder.  I am breathlessly awaiting its delivery ““ they are custom made so it will probably be about 3 weeks before it arrives.  Can’t wait!!  I suspect it can also be used as a vertical swift, which I’ve also wanted, so this will be very interesting indeed.  If it does work out that way I will probably sell my Goko swift, which is a vertical Japanese-style swift.

Now it’s just about time to finalize my display for CNCH, so I should scurry off and work on it.  I’m going to have a table with the book, a set of short flyers with a summary of the project, and a business card holder with my business cards, in case people are interested in my website.  The book and the business cards I’ve got.  The one-pager, though, I still have to write, along with the text for the announcer at the Fashion Show.  I also have to select music to go with the ensemble at the Fashion Show, probably some harp music from the harpist we’re hiring for the wedding.  And, I need to put together a list of the many things I’m taking with me to the Fashion Show setup tonight.  I’ll be leaving work a bit early to put all this together.

The Fashion Show will be Friday evening.  Don’t be late!!  I’m the first number.  They’re rolling out the red carpet for me, complete with scattered rosepetals, so it’ll be quite the deal.  If you’re going to be at CNCH, come and see it!

(But if you miss it for some reason, the dress will be on display in the galleries, 10-6 on Saturday and 10-4 on Sunday.)

That’s it!!  I been busy.  Sometime after CNCH is over I’ll drop into bed and sleep for a week!