phoenix rising | Tien Chiu's Blog

May 18, 2014 by Tien Chiu

Eureka!

After three years of fiddling, I have a design for Phoenix Rising that I am happy with. Behold!

second version of Phoenix Rising muslin, with sleeve

I’m very pleased with this muslin, though many details still need to be worked out. The dangling flames flutter beautifully in the breeze, the color gradation gives the sense of flame igniting, and the dark blue really “pops” the fiery colors. After years of fiddling with this and that, I have a design that really speaks to me, that I think is worthwhile. Hallelujah!

I am still on the fence about the sleeve (which would actually be shredded at the bottom, to continue the flame motif). Here is the sleeveless version:

muslin for Phoenix Rising, without sleeve

I like the idea of the sleeve because it gives a natural ending point to the piece, and balances the longer part of the skirt. The sleeveless version feels unbalanced to me, and also my eye gets “stuck” at the shoulder. The sleeve lets it flow down. It may not be the length in the photo – there are many twiddles yet to go – but I like the idea.

A second happiness, as you may have noticed, is that I have finally gotten the photo studio set up to the point where I can take pretty darned good photos. You would laugh if you saw how ridiculously compressed the photo studio is, but it works! Lieven helped me fine-tune it this afternoon, and showed me some Photoshop tricks. I wouldn’t call the resulting images professional grade yet, but the raw material is good enough to be publishable after some better Photoshop tweaking. After I find a publisher, I’ll worry about tweaking it properly.

What’s next after this muslin? Well, now I’m going to weave fabric samples. I have some ideas for making more interesting color-gradient cloth – echo weave is a distinct possibility, but there are others. I also want to try weaving with finer silk thread (120/2 or 140/2 silk as opposed to my usual 60/2) to see if I can produce the floaty fabric that I’m envisioning. And I want to weave samples of a crinkled blue-black cloth for use in the undergarment. (Sharon and I are envisioning the blue undergarment as a close-fitting pair of pants, to give the flames the most flutter.)

We will probably not do more muslins for a good couple of months, though. I’m working on losing weight – lost ten pounds so far and want to lose another thirty or forty pounds – which would play havoc with a closely-fitted garment. So the next few months will be about weaving fabric samples and yardage. I’m looking forward to finally doing something with all that fine-threads yarn I’ve been accumulating!

Other plans for the coming week include putting the fly shuttle attachments and the auto-advance mechanism onto Emmy. I’m missing one or two minor parts for the fly shuttle (which I purchased used), so will be ordering them from AVL tomorrow morning. The auto-advance should be a piece of cake, but since I’m halfway through adding the fly shuttle, I don’t want to mess with the loom until I have that completed. After that I’ll probably use the color study warp to test out/fine-tune the fly shuttle and auto advance. And then, I’ll work out a new draft for Phoenix Rising, and put a sample warp onto the loom. (The sea turtles are on hold for now.) I’m also going to create my examples for the book’s chapter on visual design. That’s overdue, because I’ve been too busy setting up my photography studio! But time to get back to it now. My plans may be delayed, but they are not totally shredded. Phoenix Rising is fun, but the book is important too.

Speaking of shredding, I rather unwisely left a roll of paper towels on the dining room table a few days ago. Several hours later, Mike came into the dining room and was greeted with this carnage – complete with red-handed (red-pawed?) culprit:

I’m not 100% certain that Fritz was the perpetrator, though. Tigress is usually the one who shreds paper towels, so perhaps Fritz was merely the fall guy for her misdeeds?

May 11, 2014 by Tien Chiu

Phoenix Rising – first muslin

After finishing the chocolates yesterday, I went out to the dyepots to dye the cloth for the next Phoenix Rising muslin. I started with this:

and added some low-water immersion dyed fabrics:

I let them batch and rinsed them out yesterday night. This morning I got up before dawn, excited to try them out. And here’s the end result – my first muslin.

I like this a lot – it’s my favorite of all the mockups I’ve done. The dark blue makes the fiery colors really “pop”, and is spot-on thematically (the depressive blues vs. the fires of mania). The color gradation makes me think of something being set on fire, and the transition from the bodice to the dangling strips of fabric feels natural. I really, really like this.

Next step will be to cut the dangling strips into irregular “flames,” as the strips are too rectangular and regular right now. I will also try singeing the edges. I like the idea of singed edges, both thematically (being burned by fire) and because it would save me from the problem of finishing the edges. (Hand overcast hundreds of inches of edge? Egad!)

I am a little worried about the swing of the skirt – the idea is for the strips to flit about as the wearer moves. However, if I put it over another skirt, I’ll lose a lot of the motion. I think I will make the bottom pants, not a skirt, and make them out of a dark blue crinkled fabric. Haven’t decided yet whether to make them fitted or loose-fitting. That will come out in other muslins.

Another possibility for getting “swing” into the skirt is to add some light beading, especially at the bottom. I’d have to be careful for fear of distorting the flame shapes, but four or five beads would add a little bit of swing without being overly obtrusive. I would probably also add some beading to the top, perhaps beaded fringe. More things to test out in muslins!

I am very, very happy with how things are going!

Speaking of happy, here is a delighted Tigress, who has learned that – O joy! – if she brings her cat toys back to us, we’ll throw them again for her to chase. Yes – we now have a cat that plays fetch! Here she is, playing her new favorite game. (And yes, that’s one of my paper pirns she’s chasing. Who knew that weaving tools were so versatile?)

May 1, 2014 by Tien Chiu

Phoenix Rising reloaded

Yeah, I know I wasn’t going to work on Phoenix Rising until after the book chapters were fully revised. But the CNCH Fashion Show inspired me, and as I am making good progress on chapter revision, I thought I’d indulge in a bit of design.

As you undoubtedly know, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting Phoenix Rising into focus, design-wise. It’s been all sorts of samples, garment designs, wall hangings, scarves – I’ve had a really hard time settling on a single design. So I thought it might help to establish some constraints.

First, Phoenix Rising is going to be a garment. It may well be my last garment, so it’s going to be over the top. And definitely artwear, as opposed to everyday wear or even wearable art.

Second, it will mostly feature handwoven cloth. In future work I may use surface design techniques, but this will mostly be handwoven, though it may also include surface design or embellishments done on the handwoven fabric.

Third, it will be on theme. I thought it might be helpful to write the artist’s statement first, as a kind of mission statement for the piece. So here it is:

Phoenix Rising is a celebration of my “rebirth” from Type II bipolar disorder. The dark parts symbolize the pain of bipolar depression, the fiery phoenix symbolizes the glory of rebirth, of life. The fire also represents the ordeal: passing through fire, perhaps being burned badly, on the way to rebirth.

I found these strictures more useful than constraining – they helped give some focus to the piece.

Next I looked through my collection of haute couture photos, which I harvest every year from Style.com. I don’t save everything, just the garments that have interesting ideas. The garment doesn’t have to be beautiful, just innovative – I’m not copying it, just getting concepts. I dump the photos into Evernote and use them as a starting-point.

I found one particular garment by Jean-Paul Gaultier to be compelling:

dress from Jean-Paul Gaultier's Fall 2011 collection — dress from Jean-Paul Gaultier’s Fall 2011 collection

While I wasn’t wild about the padded inserts at breasts and hips, I really liked the shredded-looking appearance of the ribbon “skirt”. I wanted to use the idea, not with ribbons but with torn strips of fabric, in fiery colors.

This inspired my first design sketch:

The idea was to put the feathery skirt over a pair of blue/black pants. The pants would be woven in dark blue and black, crimp cloth to make it rough, with red at the bottom of the crimps. This would symbolize bipolar depression. It would also work visually – the blue-black color would make the fiery skirt “pop”, since blue is the complement of orange. (Complementary colors intensify each other when placed side by side.)

That was okay, but I really didn’t like the top. The oval inserts at the side, while slimming, didn’t have anything to do with the rest of the garment, and the sleeves were competing with the feathery skirt for attention. The feathers/flames at top were quite different in look and feel from the feathers/flames at bottom, and the whole design felt disjointed. So I set it aside for a day or two.
Then I went to visit my friend Lisa. She suggested repeating the blue/black color at the top, which would add interest to the top. Thematically, it could symbolize both the cyclical nature of bipolar disorder (highs alternating with lows) and the rebirth/death/rebirth cycle of the phoenix. And it would also “pop” the flames at the top (those complementary colors again!) and add some unity between top and bottom of the garment.This seemed like a sound idea, so I drew up design sketch #2:

In this design sketch, the feathers/flames at the bottom are repeated at the top, but in a stiffer material that will stand out slightly from the body, adding dimensionality. (I’m hoping that this will give the impression of an upper torso bursting out of flames.) I eliminated the sleeves, though the feathers/flames on the left side do drape down over one arm.

I’m still not happy with this sketch – there isn’t anything (yet) to connect top and bottom, and it feels unbalanced. But I don’t think I’ll get much further with sketches, so the next plan is to try out a couple of variations on the dress form. I’m having a friend over for a dye day on Sunday, and will dye some fabrics to use in testing.

Finally, here is a shot of Fritz and Tigress, practicing inverted yoga on the couch:

Aren’t they adorable?

February 23, 2014 by Tien Chiu

This and that

This week has been a fierce juggling exercise, but the Handwoven article is done, the entries for Fiber Celebration 2014 have been juried, and (hooray!) I even had a little time to play with my own fiber projects. I’m feeling pretty accomplished, especially since I’m also in the midst of some rather intense stuff at work. It’s good stuff, all of it, and I’m glad it’s going on – but it does soak up time and energy.

(Speaking of work, some images from our recently-launched satellite were published in the NY Times last week – high resolution satellite imagery of the conflict in Kiev. We are providing valuable imagery in real time! This is super exciting.)

Alas, in the midst of all this, I’ve come down with another cold. Bother! But it’s not as bad as the last one, so I am persevering.

So what have I done?

Well, Mike and I put my new-to-me Fireside rolling temples onto Emmy today:

Fireside rolling temple, successfully mounted on Emmy!

I’ve wanted rolling temples for quite awhile, and tried (unsuccessfully) to install them on my Workshop Dobby Loom. A weaving pal was selling a used set of Fireside rolling temples, and since the shed on Emmy is much larger than the WDL’s was, I bought them and put them on. They seem to be working quite well, though it’s hard to tell since on this narrow warp there were few selvage issues anyway.

Second, I wove up some samples on the inaugural warp. Mostly, I was testing out a new kid mohair/silk yarn, similar to Kidsilk Haze. I had bought two kilos of it at the Artfibers closing sale because it was so luscious, and because the mohair halo might produce a fiery aura around a piece woven with the mohair.

Here is the sample before it was dyed. There are three sections of brushed mohair: a randomly generated 40-shaft twill, the pomegranate pattern I devised for my friend Alfred, and a textured 8-shaft pattern from Handweaving.net (Ralph Griswold’s Classical Weaving Patterns Vol I).

brushed mohair weft samples - before dyeing - front view — brushed mohair weft samples – before dyeing – front view

And here it is after scrunch-dyeing with Sun Yellow, Deep Red, and Mustard Lanaset dyes. Click to view the big image; it’s hard to make out details in the smaller ones.

brushed mohair weft - dyed - back view — brushed mohair weft – dyed – back view

brushed mohair weft - dyed - front view — brushed mohair weft – dyed – front view

On the whole my favorite is the top sample (the 8-shaft draft from Handweaving.net) on the front side – it has magnificent textural interest that does not conflict with the dye job. It also has nice halo. The twill came out okay, but the severe diagonals in the twill don’t mesh well with the organic shapes from the dye. And the pomegranates are basically illegible under the dye job and the halo.

(If you are wondering why I’m using so many less-than-40-shaft drafts on my new 40-shaft loom, it’s because I haven’t been working with 40 shafts for very long! On 24 shafts I have a nice little “stable” of previously created drafts that I can haul out for sampling. But I don’t have any on 40 shafts. And Handweaving.net has virtually no 40-shaft drafts, so I can’t use prefab drafts. It’s okay; I just need to build up a draft library. That will take time!)

I also wove up a very small sample using a precious handspun yarn that a friend gifted to me a few years back:

It’s a marl yarn, I think tussah silk with a brown wool or alpaca. It’s gorgeous.

And here is what it looks like woven with a white 30/2 silk warp, in the pomegranate pattern:

Magnificent!

The patterning with the marl yarn reminds me of a certain kitten I know:

Fritz and Tigress, cuddled up and sleeping on my worktable

So I think I’ll draft and weave a tabby-striped pattern, satin alternating with plain weave (or should I call that “tabby”? 🙂 ). If I have enough yarn, I’ll weave a scarf and call it “Tigress”.

Speaking of which, in the continuing saga of the Adventures of Tigress, today’s story is about The Conquest of the Top Shelf:

It started innocently enough, with a kitten climbing the window screen:

But then, the intrepid explorer realized there were blinds to be conquered:

And what’s that? A ledge! Perfect for walking across:

And, finally, the brave little kitten reached the Promised Land: the top shelf!

And she looked on the world, and saw that it was good.

Of course, her brother had to try to join her, but without her knowledge of the Secret Path, not even Superkitten could conquer those shelves. He made a good attempt, though, which you can see in the video below.

And that’s all for today!

January 18, 2014 by Tien Chiu

Diversifying

I’ve been racking my brains the last few weeks, trying to figure out how to execute my designs in the context of handwoven fabric. The problem is that shaft weaving, even multi-multishaft weaving, simply does not do the things I want to do without a lot of hand manipulation. If I want to weave my flowing phoenix design, I either need to turn to surface design techniques, or I need to do a lot of inlay. Which I don’t enjoy. Precise control over shapes and design requires thread by thread control, which is the province of jacquard looms and tapestry weavers. I can’t afford the first and don’t enjoy the second.

I’ve also wanted to make the handwoven fabric the primary focus of the piece, which has proved difficult since most of the techniques I might apply bring the focus onto the surface design (embroidery, beading, dyeing, etc.) rather than on the handwoven fabric. I’ve really been beating my head against the wall trying to figure this out.

Then I went to two eye-opening exhibitions. The first was the Fiberarts International show at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. Fiberarts International is one of the most prestigious shows in the country (and internationally), and it had never been to the West Coast before. I went as part of a tour with one of my weaving guilds (Loom and Shuttle, in San Francisco) and was blown away by the power of the designs. They were the most thought-provoking and interesting fiber art I’d seen. But what struck me was how multidisciplinary many of the pieces were – knitted wax transformed into knitted glass socks via lost-wax casting, handwoven fabric embroidered until the fabric was barely visible. These artists were focused on design, using whatever tools and disciplines suited their purpose, rather than trying to stick with a particular medium.

The second exhibition was a lecture at my other weaving guild, Black Sheep Handweavers. Anita Luvera Mayer, who makes fabulous artwear, showed us seventeen of her designs. And again, she used a dazzling variety of techniques and media – everything from discharge to dyeing to mosaic fabric to embroidery and appliqued doilies – to achieve her goals.

This is leading me to think I should diversify my toolkit. Instead of beating my head against the wall trying to make loom-controlled shaft weaving do something it does not, I’m going to use a variety of media to achieve my designs. Because I love weaving, they will inevitably include a considerable amount of handwoven fabric, but they won’t necessarily center around that handwoven fabric. Freeing myself from that artificial constraint will allow me to make the kind of art I want to make, instead of beating my head against the wall. If that means I have to find another venue in which to display my art, then so be it.

In that spirit, here is a design I cooked up this morning:

This one needs a ton of work, design-wise, but I like the basic idea – dead phoenix at bottom, gray flames, reborn phoenix rising out of the ashes. I could never do it as a single piece of handwoven fabric (at least, not without resorting to tapestry or jacquard), but it would work beautifully as a collection of fabrics appliqued into a wall hanging or a kimono. And I could certainly weave the individual fabrics by hand, if so inclined – in fact, I think the dead phoenix would be really neat to do in collapse weave.

So there we are: I’m going to diversify my toolkit. Am I still a weaver? I think so, but maybe not primarily a weaver. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this.

And, for those who have been patient with today’s maunderings, here is your kitten for the day: the return of Fritz the Shadow Kitty! This time, he’s playing with the cords on the blinds.

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