Arrow Kasuri... weaving up well

This is some thing I am working on. I tied and resisted some of the warp threads first. Then indigo dyed them.


Threading the reed and warping was trouble free but quite slow.



The arrow kasuri was a common pattern in the Edo period. Lining them up harmoniously is the tricky part. The thread is linen. It will be folded in half and become a men's obi. Yuko and I will l weave 4 meters each. She is so skilled. Just started weaving and already she is keeping up with me on such a difficult project.

Kamei san's Nagoya Obi

Kamei san cut her own stencil on persimmon tannin paper and applied a silk net to keep the stencil strong. She is applying the rice and bran paste with some red pigment to the cloth. The red pigment in the paste is eventually washed away. It functions so that the paste is visible against the cloth color to ensure the paste is spread evenly. The next step will be to dye it indigo tomorrow, reapply paste on both sides and then if weather permits start persimmon tannin dying over the next few weeks while the ultra-violet rays are still strong enough.

The powder is from red cedar and helps the paste last a few more dips in the indigo.

She is adding the resist paste by hand/finger to the bars that support her stencil pattern.

Summer Cotton/Linen Kimono

It is a bit of a challenge to make sure each of the students makes a yukata different from the other students. I wanted Kamei san to make something feminine and elegant. It took her a tremendous amount of effort to tie this 13 meters of linen. The dying would usually take a full day to dip and then oxidize the entire roll over ten times. This time we simply poured the indigo onto the material, let it oxidize and repeated this several times to get an icy and cloudy effect. It looks very Kyoto I felt. The dying only took half an hour. It must of felt slightly anti-climatic for her after all that work stitching and binding. Shibori aficionados will love the effort gone into this subtle work.

This is a sample of what her yukata would have looked like had she dipped it ten times. Traditional pattern. Very bold.

Katazome Technique

When teaching students about katazome they often freak out because they "can't draw". I found an easy way around this and it eliminates the hours of them torturing themselves over what pattern to cut in the stencil. I simply cut some flower or branch from the garden and have them trace the shadow on the persimmon paper. Then using a clever technique of a Japanese blind as a way to keep the stencil strong I have them cut out the pattern. You get a flower behind the screen look. It always works.

I held a blooming yellow iris last spring well Eri drew the outline on the paper. The stencil turned out wonderful. Here, I had her dye it with indigo. We re-pasted/resisted the material and then dyed it over ten consecutive days with persimmon tannin to get the deep browns. (Persimmon tannin needs a heavy dose of ultra-violet rays to change color.) The interference pattern where the stencil was slightly ( intentionally ) offset gives the work a retro-Asian shabby-chic look.

Eri was clever and used the technique to carve a stencil of grass and insects. We paste resited the edge of a soft cotton Japanese towel/scarf tenugui . It came out so cool and elegant that other students have asked to use her stencil to make their own. It has been a scorching hot sweltering summer. A light delicate tenugui not only makes you feel cooler just looking at it but functions well as an elegant sweat wipe.

Another Summer Yukata

Kawamoto san and I worked together to determine the pattern on her yukata project at the Tuesday class at my house. The result came out of the indigo vat this afternoon. Different stitching tensions helped add a nuanced finish to this masterpiece. This is also one of her very first pieces of Shibori. Almost unbelievable.

Un-oxidized indigo fresh from the bath:



The other students helped her undo the binding in time for a quick look as the sun went down:

Hinode Shibori/ Sunrise Shibori

Stitched, tied and wrapped and ready to dye:



Dyed ten tines and ready to unwrap:



The finished Yukata:


Takeshima san went to to great lengths to finish this charming tie-dye summer linen/cotton yukata. It must have taken her a few hundred hours to stitch then tie and wrap and then untie and unwrap this whimsical yet precise masterpiece. I forgot to mention the full sweltering day slaving over and in the indigo vat dipping and squeezing it over ten times to get the dark blues. She sewed it up herself and will now move on to the next project, a persimmon dyed obi/belt to go with it.

Backstrap Looms

An Izaribata or Jibata is a traditional type of Japanese loom that is used specifically for tight weaves of natural fibers such as hemp and nettle. It is also used for weaving ragweave as it can be beaten to a tight windbreak-proof weave. They are also used to weave Yuki Tsumugi the un-spun silk in the Yuki area. The weave is tight. Ones body actually becomes part of the loom controlling the tautness of the warp. The warp is beaten with both the reed as well as the baton-like shuttle with the tightness partially controlled with the weaver's back tension resulting in the tightest weave possible.
Here Yokoyama san is trying out a back strap loom.

There are pro's and cons to this kind of loom. You can't weave fast. You are almost stuck with plain weave. But you can weave tight and you are forced to think of what the essence of beautiful piece of cloth is because you are working with such a primitive and sensitive type of loom.