indigo,vintage,and shibori shop update

OK- seems like the shop was desperate for a little restocking and reorganizing so here are some links to the recently requested items-

more indigo boro fabric collections-

 

indigo boro packs

NEW! indigo dyed vintage fabric collections- all vintage fabrics…

indigo vintage collection

more of the vintage whites are in stock:

vintage whites 

vintage silk collections are available for pre-order.  these will be shipped mid June and will be limited so I am taking pre-orders. (add this to any order in the shop and it will ship free in June)

detail

vintage kimono silk linings

and the ever popular silk shibori ribbon scrap bags. many of you have asked me to email you when they are available again but honestly- i just don’t have the time to hunt down you all.  i’ll give it my best though…

composition in C major borealis

shibori ribbon scrap bags-$20

also added-

indigo sky fabric

shades of indigo

silk satin bias ribbon (white) for dyeing

phew!

and there will be more 3 way color shibori ribbon packs in a week or so.  start thinking color!

that’s it for this Monday- またね！

wondering in white

White.  Is it a color? If black is the absence of color (darkness) then is white (light)  the combination of all colors in the visible spectrum? As a dyer, this is interesting to me.  White is often my canvas when dyeing and dyeing something black takes a whole lot of colors mixed together.  Strange.

As a dyer with an eye towards using what is around and available I have collected lots of old cloth that can be dyed. But are they white?  Many are what I would call a natural white. They are what they are-ivory, cream, white, eggshell,off-white, antique white, snow white, pearl white, bleached white etc…

Many of you who have taken indigo classes from me recently have received materials kits containing a whole variety of great old fabrics-all natural and of course dyeable in indigo. It’s informative to look at the structure of old fabrics. This cloth that was formally the fabric of people’s  lives. Literally- laces, tablecloths, clothing, bed coverings, kitchen towels, even mosquito netting and more. Each type of cloth reveals more about itself when dyed in the vat-it’s thickness, weave, age, and even stains that dye differently from the whole cloth.  Next to each other, they can form an amazing array of beautiful blues or whites.

But what if they were left as they are?  Left to use in other ways, to stitch together new dreams and aspirations? That is what I see going on in Jude’s new class What If Diaries. Definitely not a craftsy class where everything is laid out for you to make or do according to the plan, but a way to explore much deeper. The class is now sold out but she has others of a similar nature to explore. I like that the cloth is explored more deeply- that students not only connect themselves to the fabrics, the stitches, but that there is always a stream of consciousness floating in the background as a jumping off point to some new or even old idea. It’s kind of like what I imagine the beginning of the universe to be-  sort of like a primordial soup of creation.

old battenburg lace- in process

And speaking of creation- last weekend at the JANM (Japanese American National Museum) we had a really grand time. I took a whole silk display and we even reeled silk on the old zakuri. The students were in awe as most had never seen this before. The ingeniousness of the device AND that of the silkworm and it’s cocoon. I don’t think they’ll ever take silk for granted again!

student reeling silk on the old zakuri

And of course we dyed silk- new and old. Itajime was the focus and this was a quick pic of their first pieces of the day.  After this, I got too busy to take photos-as usual. Many left class and went straight out to the front desk to sign up for the Aug 31-Sept 1 class.  

Saturday, August 31, 2013

12:00 PM—4:30 PM

Lifelong Learning

Indigo and Shibori Techniques with Shibori Girl

In this 2-day workshop we will focus our intentions on practicing itajime (fold and clamp) shibori on recycled kimono lining silks. Once considered as precious as gold, old silks are being discarded at an alarming rate! Let’s breathe new life into them and improve our understanding of both silk and itajime shibori. Indigo and colorhue dyes will be used in this workshop. Both days: $70 members; $90 non-members, an additional $45 materials fee (cash only) will be collected at the beginning of class, admission is included. RSVP early, 20 students max.

So, if you are in the mood for some cloth that really moves you-cloth containing texture as a main component, fragments like scattered thoughts across time and place, imperfection seen as perfection, then click on over to the shop and see what’s old.

And if you think you want to join the JANM workshop in Aug. you might want to sign up early.

 

the wondering wall

as soon as the taxes are finished, i can get back to wondering.  and dyeing. it’s has been quite busy here as of late but a shop update is on the horizon! mostly ribbon to start out with but also some lovely old whites.  Jude is also busy wondering in white. I’m going to go there for a bit too. But my wonderings usually end up turning blue.

cranes in the moon-indigo on silk

In Japan, cranes have long been associated with longevity and good fortune. Often a wedding kimono will have cranes incorporated into the design.  This old silk with jacquard crane imagery had me wondering if combining it with a moon might enhance its loveliness.  The moon has long been associated with beauty and the appreciation of beauty in Japan.  I think it makes a handsome pairing.

some wondering about more shibori texture.  more of this soon.

and the indigo has had its first haircut which has been dried and stored!  these plants volunteered themselves by self sowing.

and some old silk kimono linings had me practicing my itajime with the fermentation vat

which is really liking spring!

from the fermentation vat. i’ve been working almost exclusively with it since the beginning of the year.

the chem vat  is off in a corner. i wonder if i will ever use it again?

and… i’m going to saturday school to practice my Japanese (hence the old かな cards).  this old doll came out of the cupboard to help me design a piece for my friend Donna’s line of mannequins. it all looked interesting lying on the table soI snapped this shot for fun.

that’s it for now- back to finishing up the taxes.  need to get them in asap so my son can figure out if he can get the appropriate mix of financial aid and scholarship funds so he can accept his graduate school acceptance offer from ………

…the San Francisco Conservatory of Music!  (so proud of him….congrats Trev!) cross your fingers for him…it’s an honor and a really big deal. If he can swing it, he will be studying under Jack Van Geem and David Herbert the principal percussionist and principal timpanist of the San Francisco Symphony. He’s making his dreams come true through hard work, persistance and practice.

living in the wind’s shadow

sometimes the time after a show is my favorite time.  the busy preparation time is over, the workshops given, information imparted, items sold, people met, much talking, boxes returned, unpacked, put away.  and best of all,  bills paid for the coming month from proceeds of the show.

this is the time when i can “live in the shadow of the wind”. a small space in time of seeming protection from outside forces.

i am working still, of course.  but more at my own pace.  and moving at one’s own pace, one can linger here and there. wonder about a thing or two. even plant a few seeds between dyepots.

last year i had saved some tomato seeds from a plant that grew along the driveway. it was particularly productive with an early , moderately sized flavorful crop.  i dried them on a piece of paper toweling just because it seemed practical at the time.  now that i am planting them, i just had to snip the paper towel into bits and plant it right along with the attached seeds.

and the cores of the ribbon rolls i had been saving worked great.  also planted were えだまめ、ししと、おちゃ、みずな。(that would be edamame (soybeans),shishito (sweet peppers great for grilling),mizuna (greens),and tea.)

i am working at reviewing some of my offerings and changing up a few things.  trying out some new ideas on arashi.  stitching lots of silk.  dyeing indigo. the vat continues and yesterday i started a new  indigo fermentation soup.  i’ve decided to leave the madder alone for now.  too many things going on in one small workspace leads to confusion and mediocrity.  i have enough going on at the moment.　but the madder out back along the fence continues to grow…madly!

i do want to say thank you to all the wonderful folks who came out to the Sew Expo show in Puyallup.  i was very pleasantly surprised by this show.  it is a bit different from the other shows i have been doing in that many of the attendees are garment sewers.  i like that.  there were even some young middle schoolers who were learning to sew for themselves (thanks to the 4H programs there) and were eager to show me their projects.  i noticed that some of the items that didn’t sell at the houston show were the first to go at this show!  interesting.  i was pleased because i really do want to make more of those items and next year i will be tailoring my fare to suit this customer even more.

and buddy, the new pup stayed on top of things in the office while i was gone.

now- i’m off to do some work on the Japan Silk Study Tour and to get to work on a boatload of silk shibori ribbon. the wind’s shadow is fading fast…

じゃまた！

back to the future-again

The story goes something like this:

One day Richard and I were emailing back and forth about this and that.  Mostly about textiles and old things he had come across and how they could be saved and utilized.  And about him coming here from Japan to teach another workshop.  And about how he had gone into the attic of an old farmhouse and found some remnants of the family’s sericulture activities.  At the time I was putting together the “Silk Experience, Then and Now” exhibit for last year’s Houston’s International Quilt Festival.  He had found some examples of the straw cocoon bedding and of the cardboard cocoon trays which followed years later.  He saved me some samples that I was able to display at the show.  A couple of weeks later, he emailed me to say that he had come across some washi “cocoon bags”- was I interested?  Without hesitation I said yes! Get what you can, I said, not really knowing what they were but instinctually sure they were important somehow.  If you saw the exhibit last year you saw these remarkable examples of what I consider to be folk craft-handmade objects that served a purpose in daily life. I love stuff like this.  Everyday objects that are used but also are beautiful both visually and for the fact that they fit into the structure of everyday life of the time in which they were produced by craftsman of those times.  Eventually, he had the opportunity to acquire a few more.

cocoon bags at exhibit

Now,  I have been to the main sericulture/silk museums in Japan as well as seen the collection of items at the Tokyo Silk Science Institute associated with Tokyo University.  I had never before seen anything like these washi bags!  I wondered…

cotton cocoon bag with markings

I started researching online.  Couldn’t find anything.  In fact, vintage or antique washi itself was rare to find.  Mostly now you find a scrapbooking product claiming to be vintage washi tape.  An image search of “vintage Japanese washi” comes up with this page.  Not e x a c t l y…

this is washi

What we have surmised so far is this- that these bags were made in Mino City-known for it’s papermaking and it’s close proximity to where they were discovered by Richard.  That they are easily over 100 years old. That some are treated with kakishibu (persimmon tannin) and others were dyed with tumeric (the yellow ones or yellow patches on them).  That they predate the use of cotton bags for silk cocoon transportation and storage.  That they were regularly sent back for repair and patching when needed and in the end, they were abandoned in favor of cotton bags.  Since Mino was a center of papermaking, they may be a somewhat regional object-using what comes naturally and is close at hand.  Hence, why I have yet to see them in other areas like Gunma or Yokohama which are more north.

Imagine!  Giant gusseted cocoon bags made of thick fibrous paper, patched, repaired and saved for tens of decades.  I have saved one out to give as a gift to the Yokohama Silk Museum if they are interested.  I have not seen one there.  I have saved myself one and have it hanging on a wall where I can see it every day and wonder.  Some people have expressed an interest in using the paper itself in their own artwork.  Either way, these pieces have ki or 気 which is another way to say vital life energy.  That they have resurfaced after all these years is so interesting to me.  We have several of them available in the shop.  It’s a joint effort between us to find these pieces good homes where they can continue to produce 気.

in the shop now

intention

Seems like lately I’ve been in the employ of words ending in -tion and -sion. words like:

instruction, concentration, immersion, connection, destination, impression, revelation, fermentation
and the main one:

intention

All through the recent couple of weeks these words rolled around inside my head and I find that they apply to so many things throughout my day.  All of them though, bound up by intent. I am focusing more on intent these days. Maybe focusing isn’t the right word really.  At least being more conscious of it, wondering about it, taking it into consideration . Noticing it, within myself and beyond.

I think that the silks that Richard brought over made it ever clear. These fabrics have intent. Working with them I can feel and see it. Even though most were produced many decades ago (and maybe especially because they were) the intent seems clear to me.  They are still here.  They were saved all this time. The intent was carried on through many hands into their present form.

old silks

And over time here, I have been wondering not only about silk, but about indigo too. Last year I grew indigo-cut and dried it, even saved the seed.  Eventually I composted the leaves into a claylike mass. Now, I have made a fermentation vat with the homegrown indigo.  I think the past is about to meet the future, blending the past with the future, sustainably.

silk boro indigo

This intention has been brewing in me for a very long time. Some days I think maybe since the dawn. I am only beginning to recognize it as such. I can be a slow learner…

giving new life to old silk

once upon a time there were many many kimono. some were worn daily, some were worn for special occasions and when they needed cleaning, they were taken apart, cleaned, then sewn back together.  as time passed, many of these kimono were no longer being worn. the outer fine colorful silks were often stripped of the inner linings and resold to be remade into other things. but the lowly inner lining silks-though also fine, but often plain and with little pattern or color, were set aside (if not discarded!) since no one knew what to do with them.

Richard has been collecting them and remaking them into his beautiful silk mandalas.  he is here once again to give a workshop and for the past couple of days we have been preparing things.  today, we took some pieces out to get a few photos and some video for the daily dyer.

my, they looked glorious! so alive & revivied.

for this workshop, we decided that we wanted to concentrate on using some of these silks and show what can be done with them . we will be using them freely both for the arashi  and the mandalas.  if they don’t start being used, they are simply going to be discarded.   silk was used as a form of currency at one time, so it is interesting to me that something that was once so highly valued is now being cast away.

i like the intention of these pieces we are making.  some of the silks are quite old.  they were important enough to have been saved by someone all this time.  some appear to be hand loomed, even hand spun!  imagine throwing that away.  some are simple but perfect for dyeing.  some have spots or stains. all are unique in various ways. most of the blemishes were no longer noticeable once they were dyed.  my favorites are the ones where you can see the slubs, tyoffs and the uneven tensions from the weaving. like these-

celery

mandarin

natural

there was more than enough for the workshop so i spent some time today sorting and ironing and packaging up some to put into the shop.

neutral assortment

detail

more detail

i like that we can use this silk from the past in our work today. i can learn things just by looking at it! and some of it is here now in the shop.

 

color like a song

it got warm here today. i peeled off the outer layers and …

composition in C major borealis

it almost felt like spring!  song was in the air~

by monday, i should have the shop restocked with ribbons in all sorts of colors.

practicality

just working with some vintage kimono lining silk and came across a piece that still had it’s tag on it.  these tags were placed to identify the owner when the kimono was taken apart for cleaning.  often, they were never reassembled.  i removed this tag and realized it was washi (handmade paper).  i loved that the end of it was just twisted into a string/cord and run through and tied into the silk’s selvedge. 

practical.  and lovely. 

 

 

year end announcements…

I am tying up some loose ends on things that have been in the works around here for a while.  Everything takes longer than expected it seems-especially around the holidays when there are lots of comings and goings.

Today the wind died down a bit (not completely) but the surfers were devoted to getting into the water which leaves me in complete and blissful silence to work on these unfinished details.

First- the In Studio Workshop with Richard Carbin and myself  is available in the shop. Just click here to visit the listing and read through it carefully. If you have any questions,  just use the contact form or email me.  Leaving a comment here is OK too- I can reply privately via your comment.

    ++++    ===?????  

I’m excited to collaborate with Richard again.  Ours has been an wonderful pairing of interests and talents. We met virtually via Flickr several years ago becoming fans of each others work.  Richard is an ex-pat living in Nagoya Japan with his wife and two boys. In June 2009 when Phil & I visited Nagoya for the Arimatsu Shibori Festival, we made a pact to meet up and get to know each other better and in person. We visited late into the night and although our work is completely different we shared a passion for Japan, silk, and dyeing.  Afterwards, we continued getting to know each other online via Facebook and via email and decided to create a collaborative workshop. Our online workshop Indigo Mandalas (born of the original In Studio workshop last year) was the first internationally collaborative online workshop as far as I know.  We continue to inspire and draw on each others experience and interests using the internet & media, learning as we grow.

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Secondly, the Silk Study Tour to Japan is filling nicely.  We only have 4 spots (out of 20) left so,  if you think a trip to Japan to see silk sericulture, beautiful textiles, a natural dye workshop and more are in your future for May of 2013-contact me soon.  We never really know if we will repeat this tour-so far our third biennial tour. Life has a way of keeping us on our toes and in the present which is a good thing and keeps up from putting off those things that we really want to do but somehow don’t. More and more I realize that today is the day!   Click the link for details and feel free to contact me if you you have any questions at all. I’m getting excited all over again.  New things await us in Japan every time we go!