Tien Chiu

  • Home
  • About
    • Honors, Awards, and Publications
  • Online Teaching
  • Gallery
  • Essays
  • Book
  • Blog
  • Dye samples
You are here: Home / All blog posts / Sea turtle scarf
Previous post: The loom is fixed!!
Next post: Dyepot decisions

March 8, 2015 by Tien Chiu

Sea turtle scarf

The last few days have basically been about surgery prep and sea turtles. Surgery is Thursday, so I have been tying off loose ends. At work I finished a major project review on Friday; I still need to do some work for performance reviews and tie up a few loose ends, but that’s about it. At home, I finally finished hemming the placemats and table runner, and handed them off to my photographer friend Lieven, who will be taking the beauty shots for the Handwoven for the Home contest being put on by Handwoven magazine. And I put together my sample sheets for the Twenty Four Plus or Minus study group. That’s almost everything I had planned to do before surgery – the last one, finishing two batches of candied citrus, will be completed today. They are not quite as sugar-saturated as I would like, but they’re done enough, and it’s now or never.

So what am I doing with my copious free time? Why, weaving, of course! I have put together a draft for a sea turtle scarf, a complicated process that involved redrafting the sea turtles and making sure they reversed gracefully in the center of the scarf. Because of the network drafted ripples, that meant drafting out the entire scarf. It will be 5,040 picks (72 inches) long, plus another inch or so on the ends to provide a generous hem. Here it is after the first few sea turtles:

the beginning of the handwoven sea turtle scarf
the beginning of the handwoven sea turtle scarf

The blue portion at the bottom of the scarf will become the hem. Why? Because, when turned back and turned under, it will match the back of the scarf:

reverse side of cloth
reverse side of cloth

This will make the hem much less obvious. (The idea comes from Kerstin Fröberg’s marvelous blog. Apparently it’s standard practice in Sweden, but it had never occurred to me before!)

The back of the scarf looks somewhat erratic, because it’s from the original set of samples with an incorrect pick density. The scarf itself has a much more solid underside.

I haven’t yet decided which side I like better. The ripples are more obvious on the bottom side, but the sea turtles “read” better on the top side. It also depends on the results of overdyeing at the end – I’m planning to scrunch it up tight in tiny ripples and then pour very pale shades of aqua and sea green dyes over the cloth. That will give it a bit more color and a more water-like effect. I will sample first, of course! Fortunately the reversed hem will match whichever side I choose to be the back.

Anyway, the scarf, as mentioned, is 5040 picks long, and I’m currently at 1,080 picks. I’m hoping to finish weaving/dyeing it before surgery, so I can add the beaded fringe while in bed recovering, but I’m not going to stress about it. There will be plenty of time to finish it afterwards. I’ll be off work recovering for a bit over a month, and I expect to be mostly ambulatory (though not fully recovered) within a week or two.

Surgery is scheduled for Thursday. I’ve got an excellent surgeon (one of the pioneers in his field, with tons of experience), so I’m not particularly worried, but well-wishes are welcome, as always. I’ll try to post my status on Friday, but if you don’t hear from me for a few days afterwards, blame the painkillers.

The cats, of course, have sensed there is something wrong in the household (cats have a sixth sense about these things), and are doing their best to help me finish my last few chores. For example, here are Fritz and Tigress helping me finish the placemat hems:

Tigress being helpful
Tigress being helpful
Fritz being helpful
Fritz being helpful

Said “help,” admittedly, consists mostly of batting at the thread I’m trying to sew with, trying to eat any stray bits of yarn, and sitting on the placemat I’m trying to hem, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

They had to help with putting together the sample sheets for my study group, too. Here is Fritz, helpfully chewing on a cone of yarn:

Fritz helping with samples
Fritz helping with samples

Then Tigress joined in the fun, and for awhile, I was too busy fending off enthusiastic feline assistance to get anything done. Fortunately a white knight (aka Mike) appeared and distracted the cats with a laser pointer, or I never would have gotten those samples finished!

Share this post!

  • Tweet
  • More
  • Email
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Print

Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving Tagged With: sea turtles

Previous post: The loom is fixed!!
Next post: Dyepot decisions

Comments

  1. Cindi says

    March 8, 2015 at 7:30 am

    Good luck on your surgery! I had a friend who lost a kitty from eating thread so it always make me a bit nervous.

  2. kathyo says

    March 8, 2015 at 8:26 am

    Quick and easy recovery is wished! 🙂

  3. Sharon says

    March 8, 2015 at 10:47 am

    I hope the surgery goes well, and the recovery smooth and fast. Good luck.

  4. Sheila Carey says

    March 8, 2015 at 12:22 pm

    Best wishes for all going well!

  5. terri says

    March 9, 2015 at 5:42 pm

    Sending good thoughts your way for the surgery and for a quick recovery!

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 Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.