sweetgeorgia

Indigo dyeing in Kyoto

Near the end of October, I took a very short, very last-minute trip to Tokyo and Kyoto at what ended up being a most economically unfortunate time of the year. The Japanese Yen shot up relative to my Canadian dollar, leaving me with some pretty sad (yarn)buying power. But, I did go to Japan, and I did buy yarn… but more on that in another future post.

Being in Kyoto, mere blocks away from the traditional weaving and textiles district in the city, I sought out the Aizenkobo workshop. Aizenkobo is a indigo dye workshop and retail shop that produces a number of hand-dyed clothing items using techniques such as shibori (binding and dyeing), sashiko embroidery (hand stitching), ikat and double ikat (resist dyeing and weaving) and also natural dyeing with plant dyes.

Shibori dyed Japanese cotton scarves

Rolls of double-ikat handwoven fabric

Indigo dyed and overdyed sashiko thread

Sashiko on a pillowcase

I met the third-generation indigo dyer, Kenichi Utsuki, who described how his grandfather was originally an obi sash maker and weaver and how they started indigo dyeing. His father ran two businesses — both the obi sash making and indigo dye shop — but discovered that obi sash making was no longer a viable or profitable business. Their family switched to indigo dyeing alone, sold all their weaving looms, and focused entirely on natural process indigo dyeing. He has since been invited to numerous universities around the world to lecture on natural indigo dyeing. His wife, Hisako, is the designer of many of their garments.

Kenichi Utsuki stirring up one of three dye vats

Frothy and foaming indigo flower on the top of the vat, after stirring

His naturally fermented indigo process is significantly different from other chemical indigo processes in that it results in improved colour permanence and vibrancy in the indigo dyed fabric. Whereas we use chemicals like thiourea dioxide or sodium hydrosulfite, his natural ferment process uses wheat husk powder, limestone powder, lye ash, and sake. It allows the dye vats to run continuously throughout the year. I think it gets pretty cold in Kyoto in winter, but apparently they dye through the winter too. Also somewhat controversial is heating indigo vats, and here I could see that he has a heater inserted in the vat. I even watched him taste the dye liquor… eeek.

The natural indigo process produces an incredibly vibrant, saturated and clear blue colour that does not fade. Even pieces that he brought out that were 50 or 60 years old were still a bright, vivid “eggplant” blue. For comparison, he brought out a number of chemical process indigo pieces from all different countries, and the blue colour was much less saturated… greyed. Some of their blues are so intense and deep that they come close to black. On cotton and linen, something like 15 or 20 dips are required to generate the colour range. On silk, however, the number of dips increases to 40 to 60 even. One madder-dyed scarf he showed me was dyed and washed 18 times in order to get it’s intense, beautiful red colour.

Kanoko Shibori tied fabric prior to dyeing

...after dyeing...

...and after steaming.

Utsuki explained how they do not do any of the shibori tying at their workshop and instead hire factories in Nagoya to do this work. He says that each family has their own tying method and pattern that they do over and over for their whole lives. They don’t switch patterns. They simple make the same pattern again and again. That kind of steadfast dedication to one thing allows them to develop true mastery and virtuosity. It makes me wonder, if you think your job is boring, I wonder what they think of their jobs. If they wake up in the morning and think, ah crap, another scarf, another day of making knots… But we are grateful for their exquisite skill and the beautiful things that are produced from their hands.

If you are interested, I brought back two shibori scarves, one madder dyed scarf, and two skeins of the most gorgeous indigo-dyed silk threads that you can take a look at on Saturday at the open house. We are on from 2 to 5 pm on Saturday afternoon at #401-228 East 4th Avenue at Main Street in Vancouver. Go vote for mayor… and then come play with yarn!

Wool n’ Dance

If I was in London right now, I’d be going to this!

“To coincide with the Thames Festival, Wool n Dance, also at Southbank Centre this weekend is a special event inviting you to cut-a-rug (quite literally) outdoors on a wet and slippery dance floor and turn a big wool carpet into felt. Live music and workshops in spinning, knitting, felting and weaving. This event takes place 13 & 14 September at the Southbank Centre. Free entry from 12pm.”

Turning a wool rug into felt by dancing on it? So cool.

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/visual-arts/productions/wool-n-dance-42362

From wallace+sewell to Textile Futures

Travelling to London has kept my interest partly because their designers, artists and craftsmen are so well supported and encouraged by the local councils that they appear to be able to innovate and create more. So for me, it’s not just yarn tourism… it’s the search for signs of future growth and the pushing forward of an entire textile and craft industry. I’m looking for something more than just the mechanical workings of a traditional hand loom or traditional fair isle designs updated in contemporary colours. I don’t know what it is, but I’m looking.

On the way, I get distracted by shiny, pretty things and some of the most vibrantly coloured, interesting and luxurious woven items I have found in London are designed by Wallace+Sewell, a pair of weavers who graduated from the Royal College of Art almost twenty years ago.

Located at the corner of Amwell and Lloyd Baker Streets just south of the Angel tube stop, the shop is seriously tiny, but stacked from floor to ceiling with silk, cashmere and wool blankets and scarves. Last time I visited, they had a “pillow” event, so the centre of the shop was piled high with pillows made from their woven designs in all different colours and textures. This time, I think the silk organza scarves were new… and these plasticized fabrics too. This was some of the most intriguing work I saw… very contemporary and very topical. Selvedges from handwoven fabric was compressed with vinyl plastic in order to create a new “fabric” which was then made into handbags.

I love love loved these. Scraps of woven silk fabric laid in quite a thick chunk of plastic making some really interesting bracelets, earrings and brooches. Just some very inventive ways of using up the little bits of extra fabric.

And of course, perfectly sheer and delicately coloured woven silk organza scarves. Not entirely innovative, but still beautiful to see and touch.

Where else in the world is really, truely new textile design and innovation happening? And I don’t mean textile art. I mean functional textile design for use in fashion or interiors. Emphasis on functional. Where do we stop just making pretty things and start making things that improve people’s lives in tangible ways? For a while now, I have been following the work and research being done at Central St. Martin’s in their MA Design for Textile Futures, mainly because I was interested in possibly studying there (but can you say “hello, life long student loan debt”?), but also because there is no program like it anywhere. Where else do students create interactive wallpaper, light-reactive window shades, and “architectural textiles for localised urban food production and environmental monitoring”. I don’t even know what that means. But when you pair creative and innovative textile designers with Nobel prize-winning scientists… well, we can just be optimistic that our future lives will be benefitted by their new discoveries.

Eggs & Toast

What else can you live on besides cereal? Eggs and toast! I know that I do have some strange fixations on certain things… cereal being one, and eggs, dumplings and za jian mein as some others. But anyway. Welcome to my “Eggs on Toast” Tour of London…

My absolute, hands down, favourite breakfast place of all was [The Breakfast Club](http://www.thebreakfastclubangel.com/) in Angel. It was ridiculously good. I don’t know how many eggs were in that pile of scrambled eggs, but I ate every single last bit. It was so ridiculously good, I went back the next day and ordered the exact same thing.

Then there were the eggs and soldiers at a bakery near Kings Cross… I think it was called Le Pain. There looks to be an over abundance of bread in that photo.

The most hilarious plating was at some random cafe on Cross Street (I don’t remember the name). I forgot to ask for the eggs scrambled, as you can see.

Cheesy eggs on toast at a tiny outdoor cafe in [Blackheath](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackheath,_London) near Greenwich.

I realize breakfast menus in the UK quite commonly have things like baked beans, black or white pudding, chips, and so on… but I keep things quite simple. Two eggs, scrambled + two slices of toast = perfection.

Spring in London

I’m back to loitering in London again. This time, staying at Jen’s flat near the Angel tube stop… making it painfully easy to get to the lovely little Loop yarn shop. Located on Cross Street, it’s a tiny shop tucked into a corner with nothing but a small pink sandwich board outside. 

There’s a nice selection of Louisa Harding, Debbie Bliss, Alchemy, Blue Sky Alpacas and Be Sweet yarns here. But my lovely score was a copy of Kim Hargreaves’ book, “Heartfelt: The Dark House Collection“. She’s published all her solo designs … for sale … without kits! It’s like I’ve been living in a hole or something. Anyhow, I like it.

Just across the street from Loop is Tribe… a gallery full of handwoven rugs from all over the world. They were closed today, so I could only paw at the window.

On this trip round, I’m mostly living off of a box of cereal, one gigantic cold pizza from La Forchetta, and a whole lot of fruit… but yesterday, I met up with a girlfriend who took me for afternoon tea near London Bridge. The shop was SO precious… painted a pale frosty pink with tea cups suspended from the ceiling with thumbtacks! Ingenious space saving idea. I sat directly underneath the tea cup constellation and enjoyed my earl grey and lemon cake. Thank you, Charlotte.