Where is the Japanese Textile Workshop Farmhouse?

To answer the question asked a thousand times....

Here is this old house on sunny June day with the gang all in their own world at the indigo and preparing work for the indigo:



And here are some Google Earth Grabs with Narita Airport on one side of Tokyo and the house on the other side. You can see why there are monkeys and boars running around the village when you see that  we are right on the edge of the wild.  In old times the village made charcoal to supply the old city of Tokyo, Edo.

(click for larger images.)

I am supposed to be leaving for a few months in Russia a few days from now. Unfortunately, one of my doggies, Geiger is not doing that well and I'll stay home and make sure he is comfortable. He has good days and bad days. Recently a string of good days and he enjoys his walks. His nose is going and he picks up rocks and starts to chew on them thinking they are monkey poo.   Yuck.

My house sitters, Renita and Suzi have flown all the way to Japan from Australia...across the madness of Tokyo to this small village to look after the fort while I go away and they end up stuck with me here.

Wasting no time we started to fix up the sorry state of my back strap looms in various states of existence  and get four complete healthy looms up and running.



Here they are using the warping wheel to set a warp length and put the cross in the threads. (Silk dyed indigo.)  We will weave a very fine saki ori rag weave from old silk kimono linings.



And the next step of sleighing the reed.



And the next step of making thread heddles...one by one.



The cold wind is here from Siberia so I do get to enjoy some Russian winter after all.

Old and New and Reused.

Ogata san showed up at the front door on January 2nd with a new hand-made red hat and bib for the little stone Jizo sculpture in the forlorn winter garden in front of the front door.

One year and the 2016 bib and hat were mossy and faded.

Barbara san.....I finished weaving up the double sided indigo wool runner for the inside step up into the house. It works well with the Picasso harlequin rug on the landing. Thank you! (Should have vacuumed before I took the picture but the morning light was brief and good with all the bamboo cut off the mountain!)

I have a few meters left of warp and am now unravelling one of Hiro's old moth-eaten sweaters to use for weft yarn for the next runner down by the open bathroom. Recycling...