It has been a while since I have posted on this blog. I have been busy sourcing antique and vintage fabrics and dyeing katazome textiles. I have also been working on a new website and blog. Please visit our new website for blog posts on antique Japanese textiles and my new indigo dye projects. We also have a shop where you can purchase fabrics and an experiences page where you can learn about upcoming classes and textile tours. Visit the new website at: www.nsomerstextiles.com
This Katazome fabric is light and soft and I think the background decorations must have been inspired by the embroidered designs from Ainu robes.
Katazome is a type of fabric that is decorated through the use of paste resist stencil designs. The technique has been used in China and Japan for hundreds of years. I wanted to try the technique, but felt overwhelmed by the large number of supplies needed. This was my short cut experiment in katazome. I began by cutting out a stencil from some small squares of kakishibu treated paper. Kakishibu is a dye made from the fermented juice of green astringent persimmons. It is often used to dye fabric or to waterproof paper. I copied the chrysanthemum and sea holly patterns from some antique fabrics, and I made a simple rice paste glue by cooking glutinous rice flour in hot water for a few minutes. I left the paste to thicken up and cool down in the refrigerator.
The base fabric was dampened with a spray bottle and the stencil was also moistened so that it would lay flat on the damp fabric. I used a small spatula to push the paste through the stencil before removing the stencil and allowing the paste to dry in the sun for about an hour.
After the paste was no longer tacky I dyed some of the fabric pieces with indigo and the rest using kakishibu. The kakishibu dyed fabrics need to be exposed to strong sunlight in order to deepen the color of the dyed fabric. I am pleased with the simplified katazome fabrics that this experiment produced. I wrapped the fabrics up as gifts with some antique Japanese paper from old daifukucho.
This summer I spent several weeks in Japan. The first week was spent on the island of Amami where I learned about the fabric traditions of the island. Amami Oshima is located in Kagoshima prefecture and is 2.5 hours by plane from Tokyo. Amami, like Okinawa, was once part of the Ryukyu kingdom and developed its own unique culture and textile tradition.
This fabric in the process of being woven is Amami Oshima Tsumugi. It has been woven on Amami for generations and its production is extremely technical and time consuming, but the final product is a strong and durable silk fabric. Many people told me that the fabric can often be worn by three generations being passed from grandmother to daughter to granddaughter.
Amami Oshima Tsumugi is a tabby woven, double ikat fabric. In this technique both the warp and weft threads are dyed before being placed on the loom. The designs are first sketched, the sketch helps the first set of weavers know where to bind the threads so that the final product will create the desired design. This binding is done on a large sturdy loom and the warp and weft threads are sent to the dyers in dense panels of bound silk threads measuring from between 2″x 14″ to 20″x 20″. Subsequently the threads will be dyed before being picked loose from their panels and placed on the loom for their final weaving.
Above you can see a weaver adjusting individual threads with a sturdy needle. The design becomes obscured by the weaving process and needs to be lined up after every inch of weaving.
Below you can see that these looms have two warps. One solid black warp is fixed on the loom by being wound around the warp beam, but the second warp is tied as it needs to be tensioned and adjusted after the weaver completes about 20cm of fabric. Due to the complexity of its weaving it takes a weaver at least 6 months of full time weaving to produce one bolt of fabric. This accounts for its cost of $15,000-$30,000 per bolt.
I also spent several days with the Kanai family at their dye workshop.
Yukihito Kanai stands between two of his friends who also work at the dye shop. Yukihito learned the traditional process of dyeing from his father.
The silk treads are first soaked in a dye made from boiling wood chips from sharimbai, or Japanese hawthorne, which is a native evergreen shrub. After the chips have been soaked and boiled for several days the resulting liquid produces a dark maroon dye.
The thread is washed in the sharimbai dye mixed with lime many times to produce the desired color. When the threads are washed in the iron rich mud of the island a chemical reaction turns the maroon thread a deep lustrous black.
Above you can see the deep black warp threads. Below you can see the panels of bound silk threads which after dying, picking loose, and weaving will produce the desired design. These panels have been dyed with indigo.
Yukihito continues the tradition of dying silk for Amami Oshima Tsumugi, but he also expands the dying and traditional patters to create new products. This tenugui has been screen printed with a traditional pattern representing the village where the Kanai family live. He dyes these with indigo, sharimbai, and mud.
The Kanai family was extremely hospitable and welcomed me to a huge family dinner. A family friend and local fisherman brought amazing fish which was used to make sashimi. Okasan is an exceptional cook, who must have made 20 dishes for dinner. She also used the fish bones to make rich miso soup the next day.
I also had the opportunity to visit a woman who manages and runs a beautiful museum dedicated to Amami Oshima Tsumugi. The museum takes up the top floor of the lovely ocean side Thida Moon Hotel. Her collection is amazing and it is easy to see her passion for teaching others about Amami Oshima Tsumugi. She was a phenomenal host and treated me to an extraordinary dinner made by her and some of the other weavers from the island. 
Below is a piece of Amami Oshima Tsumugi I was given by the members of a small weaving workshop I visited.
A small bed of Japanese Indigo plants I started from seed.
I recently found this beautiful 19th century indigo dyed fabric that was more than likely used as a furniture cover. These were traditionally made for a wedding and often display the brides family crest. The hand spun cotton thread lends texture to the fabric. The design was worked using a rice paste resist and a method known as tsutsugaki. The light blue of the family crest is known as kame nozoki, or peeking in the vat. The fabric was first dyed with a yellow dye and later over dyed with indigo to create the beautiful green color. In the close up photos you can see the yellow dye that seeped under the resist paste. The last photo shows one of the corners where the yellow dye is also visible. I would guess that the yellow was obtained from gardenia seed pods.
I started a new project a few days ago. I used a natural linen for the warp with hand spun indigo dyed cotton and kudzu for the warp. I am pleased with how it is coming along.
This small kimono for a baby was made out of old material called boro or “rags” pieced together to make usable fabric. The boro material was intended to be the liner but, I have decided to show it off as the shell. the boro material probably came from an indigo dyed tsutsugaki furoshiki or “free hand resist dyed carrying cloth”. These were traditionally given in sets to a new bride and groom and were often dyed with the families mon or “crest”. I love the idea that the newlyweds used it until it became tattered and then remade it into clothing for one of their children. The outer fabric shown below as the liner has a design of small dogs. This fabric was factory made and was meant to replicate a double kasuri or “ikat” material. This fabric shows patches that do not make their way through to the lining material meaning that this material had been used and repaired at the time that it was made into this garment. More than likely it was also a hand me down.
Nathan Somers Textiles 