Tien Chiu

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You are here: Home / All blog posts / More on weaving, workouts
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October 26, 2006 by Tien Chiu

More on weaving, workouts

Had a good workout Wednesday–the kind that makes you pop up and realize, “OH! That’s why I’m doing this!”. My personal trainer has got me focusing on leg exercises now, and has put together a strenuous workout that is exactly what I need to build muscle in preparation for training season.

Oddly, where I had little to no enthusiasm for training before, I’m suddenly feeling eager to get back on the bike. Don’t know where the shift came in, perhaps because I’m not preoccupied with the book at the moment. I’m going to keep on writing it, but it doesn’t have the intensity right now that it did while I was working on my proposal.

Whatever it is, I’m now seriously interested in riding again, which makes me happy.

I have dyed all the extra yarn and measured out almost all of the warp. I’m moderately happy with the dyeing job–the green came out slightly yellower than the first dyelot and the gold is a shade darker, but other than that the colors match almost perfectly. I think I have enough yarn that I can keep each stripe the same dyelot–that would be nice. (At worst I can use two shuttles and alternate dyelots, to blend out color differences, but it would be a real pain in the butt and I’d prefer not to.)

I’m basically done measuring out the warp. I wound the warp in stripes, two of each color, because that was the easiest way of doing it. I have twelve warp strands of red to finish winding–the extra red skein I dyed wasn’t dry yet when I was doing the rest–and then the warp will be fully wound. I’ve already tied the warp chains onto the loom, preparing to sley the reed.

Which I don’t have yet. I’ve got an 8-dent reed (8 holes/inch) that came with the loom, and a 12-dent reed that’s due to arrive tomorrow. Technically I *could* use the 8-dent reed, but the 12-dent would be better. It all depends on whether I can stand to wait one extra day for the 12-dent to arrive…aagh!! Why, oh why, isn’t there a weaving shop in San Francisco that carries these things? What’s wrong with instant gratification?

Meanwhile, I am working very hard at NOT buying any more yarn until I use up the stuff I’ve got. This would be easier if I didn’t keep looking at these gorgeous cashmere yarns from ColourMart in the U.K. *sigh* But I have a pound of silk coming to me already, and I have a very finite amount of room for storage, so…*shrug*

I can’t WAIT to get all my stuff so I can start weaving.

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