Detour from Japanese Textiles

Space is a luxury in Japan and this fact of life manifests itself in peculiar ways. The economic asset-inflated economy was ballooning in the 80s and the air inside was thick with the smell of wet pedigree pet feet running freely around the previously off-limit rooms. Shopping was the national pastime. There just were not enough hours in a day to buy what you wanted. The size of the average home didn't change much though. And the rooms filled up quickly with overly enthusiastic purchases.

This is how a few semi-gigantic Finnish and Swedish Looms (and I remember a Bangladesh monstrosity made from teak that broke my floorboards) eventually made it to this mountain village. Tokyo sneezed years after the bubble deflated had splattered it's over sized purchases to outlying areas with rooms to spare. Some ended up at the dump or dumped on someone.

"I hear you weave...my aunt bought a loom on a weaving course she took in Helsinki in the summer of 88... She can't remember how to use it and it is taking up a full eight tatami room. She is looking for a loving home for it."

They looked like a giant boogers of sorts, wrapped in mountains of funky Scandinavian cardboard and bubble wrap .

Two were then taking up precious space in one of my ten tatami rooms. For years and years. Students eyed them and queried about what could be made on them. Besides a few long hours spent looking at the possibilities on YouTube I had no concrete idea.

I learned to weave in Japan on very old broken down soot stained kimono looms. Basic plain weave. I focused on thread making from cocoons and natural dyes and not fancy weave constructions with tons of peddles and heddles.

The students curiosity and my embarrassing ignorance of these non-Japanese looms got the best of me. I set up a cashmere warp of indigo and kihada. A simple herringbone tweed in mind. Things got out of control very fast with wild peddling and multi colored weft rants. I am happy with the result and it is keeping me warm as I blog away on a drizzling December evening.

Indigo Water Dragon Scarves

Two summers ago Kurihara san showed up several times at the old shop and asked if I was interested in making indigo dyed stockings with him. It wasn't that appealing and I was trying to be Japanese and just give him unenthusiastic answers and hope he would take them as a no. He persisted. He is 80 and retired but still has the huge tube knitting machines. He told me that he worked all his life on dying and knits and hunting down big orders. Now he wanted to do something enjoyable and different and not think about the bottom line. So he hunted me down and now we have been experimenting and playing with the possibilities this past year.


I was interested in doing some indigo knits. I often buy 45rpm indigo knit (a Japanese Maker) t-shirts and sweaters and cardigans. They are great but really pricey. I would have to learn to sew knits and design knits and learn knit thread weight. It seemed like too much but curiosity had me and I started dying threads and Kurihara san would knit them up for me on the 1950's American t-shirt knitter. I purchased a 50s four thread lock serger and started cutting and sewing. This is a lot of fun but with other more pressing commitments the piles of indigo dyed yardage started piling up. The shirts I was making were not really sellable. It will take a few years to learn to sew that well. The indigo faded slightly on the creases and in desperation I came up with the idea of water dragon scarves to reduce the piles of knit and prove my enthusiasm to Kurihara san. 2012 is the year of the dragon. (I was born in the year of the dragon so I should be having a good year in 2012) The dragon years are divided into wood dragons, metal dragons, fire dragons and water dragons. There are only two water dragon years in a century.

THE WATER DRAGON 1952 AND 2012

Water has a calming effect on the Dragon's fearless temperament. Water allows the Dragon to re-direct its enthusiasm, and makes him more perceptive of others. These Dragons are better equipped to take a step back to re-evaluate a situation because they understand the art of patience and do not desire the spotlight like other Dragons. Therefore, they make smart decisions and are able to see eye-to-eye with other people. However, their actions can go wrong if they do not research or if they do not finish one project before starting another.

(The last line makes me shiver...with so many projects on the go right now.)

The scarves are almost all silk and they look funky on anyone. I sew five or six diffent knits together and then dragon back down the edges with the lock-serger and braid/tie them up and stick the tail through the mouth. Selling well!

Harlequin Glorybower Dyer Season Again

In early November the local mountains and cliffs supply Harlequin Glorybower berries that dye a Korean pine-ash glaze porcelain color with an aluminum mordant. With some watered-down gardenia pod dye-bath you can under-dye to get some fresh greens. A too vivid yellow gets you a truly obnoxious Exorcist barf fluorescent green.



The berries are best when they are dark blue and almost black but still juicy. Use a blender to pulverize them and then bring them to an almost boil. Stop before it bubbles to get a fresh color. It is tempting to use more mordant when dying with unstable berry dyes. The thread can get sticky with mordant when using this dye so go easy on it.

I wrote about Kusagi dying on my MONDAY, 12 OCTOBER, 2009 post if you would like to read it.

Indigo Stalks Dye Sublime Grey on Silk.

After growing and dying with indigo for 19 years, you just about do everything possible with the stuff. But boiling the stems after stripping off the indigo pigment laden leaves and using that as a dye bath never happened.

A few weeks back, the mid afternoon shadows were already clammy and blackish and the coming cooler weather's pale fingers were just a few wool hairs away, almost brushing our shoulders as we stripped almost spiritless leaves off the indigo stalks.

Due to a few cool weeks in July only two harvests were possible. The pigment content was good and the plants healthy. Experimenting with fertilizer, two rows of plants with none. Two rows with a reasonable amount and two rows of complete overkill. Sadly, the fertilizer overkill rows were by far the strongest. The indigo field usually gets some locally produced dairy cow manure. It was too soon after the Fukushima nuclear accident to make any rational decision about the safety of manure and there was some old high-nitrogen chemical mulberry fertilizer gathering dust in the barn. (Raising silkworms in the early spring the mulberry is healthy enough with out it.)




The reddish stems in the stainless dye pot were as forlorn as we felt preparing them. And the resulting grey, brought to mind an overcast Canadian West Coast November walk at sundown near the water.. Gorgeous...and sublime.

Tsunamiland Workshops

I have been up volunteering several times in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures over the past six months. Shoveling tsunami gunk, sifting sand in yards, carrying debris, washing everything, making food and delivering it. It is getting colder up north and I am busy with carpentry work at the house preparing for the spring tour so I could only squeeze in one last trip up there. I got back home this morning. (To find that Snoopy had fallen down the concrete river embankments and was trapped all night in the heavy rain on a miniscule shrinking island in the middle of the river near my house. She was soaked, shocked and delirious. I fell in the river pulling her out.)

The people living in temporary emergency housing places have had their houses and spouses and children and big parts of their lives washed away. The shock has worn off and as the days grow colder and less sunshine, dreary reality sinks in. It took some effort to arrange in advance four indigo workshops at some temporary emergency housing places. It was worth it to see some very happy faces. In Spring after the tour is finished I will try to go back and hold some more. They need fresh ideas for their fundraising bazaars. Something clever with indigo? I have six months to think about it.

PS: Snoopy is now dried out and fed and sleeping soundly on my bed as if it all hadn't happened.

Chestnut Hull Dying

Autumn is here. The yuzu citrus on the trees are turning orange. Snoopy doesn't want to walk on her regular walking route this time of year because the road is littered with prickly chestnut hulls. She got pricked on her tender little paw bottoms years ago and won't forget that. (The damn monkeys scatter them all over the place.)
It is a shame not to follow the seasons. We picked up some hulls and squealed and yelped until they were boiled soft. Again we used old kimono lining with simple shibori.
I want the students to just get the process of mordants and boiling and what plant gets what color. Playing on this almost-free silk gives us the freedom to play without worrying about how to use the material. It is a shame when we get a beautiful color like this and we haven't dyed skeins of silk to weave. The moment of the season makes this process precious. There are still plenty of chesnuts around to re-do this one.

Woven Shibori

For all the weavers who want to try something new I recommend Catherine Ellis book, "Woven Shibori". She really has done a remarkable job researching and experimenting to the millionth degree the possibilities of 'weaving-in' the pull threads of shibori and the following surface dying .

Most of us Neanderthals have been painstakingly measuring and marking and stitching evenings away to get similar results. She shows us how to set our looms to get the stitching built in. It felt a little like seeing a "Ring-around-the-collar or 'Scrubbing Bubbles" or a 'Mr. Muscle your a good man to wake up to." ad for the first time. Too good to be true. But the results are in...and they work.