Japanese Textile Workshops 　日本のテキスタイル　ワークショップ

Living in a small mountain village just outside of Tokyo, I grow a crop of indigo every year and process the leaves into dye using traditional methods. I also breed silk moths, raise the silkworms and then reel/spin the silk from the cocoons. The silk is then dyed with natural dyes and finally woven on traditional Japanese looms. I run several ten-day live-in workshops a year at the old farmhouse here in Japan focusing on the Japanese use of indigo. Contact me for information.

Monday, 4 July 2011

Indigo Knit

Here is a first attempt at indigo knit. The thread here is stocking grade mercerized cotton. It was very fine, so I threw four treads after dying them. The knitting machine was imported to Japan the late 1950s and still in use. Originally it was a t-shirt fabric knitter. This is a new world for me and it looks like fun. Silk thread, paper thread.... trying something new every week. Perhaps by autumn there will be some new products in the shop. The stripes are a bit too much...