I’m planting more seeds…
Cloth from different times and places came into my possession and the stars aligned.
The last of the January moons will be mailed this week. Last chance to join this month’s moon circle is tomorrow. After that, your subscription will begin in February. I’m already thinking about February moons… Join the moon circle here.
It’s never too late to join or to plant a seed. Any seed.
around the winter garden…
Any day I plant a seed is a good day.
As those of you who have come along on the Silk Study Tour to Japan, you have had the opportunity to visit the Ichiku Kubota Museum. There is not a single person that has visited here on the various tours that left this exhibit unmoved or unchanged. Many have shed tears while experiencing this place, or while contemplating what we had just seen, while enjoying the tea room upstairs overlooking the garden waterfall. Even if you know nothing about Kubota when you enter, when you leave you long for more. There is a spiritual connection to beauty in the work, the surroundings and gardens, the architecture, and a deep respect for passion and perseverance he brought forth. Even though much of the experts in the various videos talk about the painting and imagery in his works, I am in awe of his deep understanding of and connection to the materials he used, and especially of the silk fabrics he utilized to get the results he saw in his very keen mind’s eye. The way he used stitch to bind and to texture the silk was a marvel. Even thinking about it now can transport me to that place.
Back in 2009 I blogged about my first visit there I was on the first Silk Study Tour to Japan with Maggie Backman and took a day away from the tour by bus to check out this museum. Beginning in 2011, all the tours have included a stop at this wonderful place!
You can enjoy this many part documentary covering various aspects of Kubota’s work here.
and this website-
Way back in 2008 I made a little silk baby quilt after looking at some of Kubota’s work. It was a meek attempt but I enjoyed trying out some ideas. I called it the “journey quilt”, the moon to guide the way, waves to sooth, and mountains to climb. “The baby” just turned 13! Simply made so it could actually be finished, he still has it.
One weekend at the Japanese American National Museum we studied and attempted some small tsujigahana ourselves. We came to understand its complexity. I have never really gone back to studying or practicing this technique but if you are so inclined, the marvelous John Marshall is giving an online workshop all about tsujigahana! Here he gives a brief description of the process. Here is a link to John’s workshop hosted by Botanical Colors. I’m sure it will be wonderful!
That’s all today. I have had the links to the Kubota Collection in a draft post since December and thought it would be a good time to get it out there since John is doing a tsujigahana workshop next month.
Somewhere I recently read that 90% of writing is rewriting. This often rings true when I’m writing blog posts. I stop and start, sometimes by design, sometimes by circumstance. Often times when I go to hit the “publish” button and I see the number of revisions I’m shocked! Some of the revisions are minor of course, a word or two here and there, a punctuation or spelling correction, or just an adjustment to make if feel better as the words roll by. Other times, it’s as if I started out with one idea and end up with a completely different post for one reason or another. Some posts are completed in one sitting, others are written over the course of several days. I never know which it will be once I’ve started.
Sadly, I’m attending a service today for a man named Bill Pearl who for 20 plus years was the journalist with the most integrity in our city. He was mostly ignored by local government as he didn’t write what they wanted him to-but the people loved him and it is very obvious by the many, many outpourings of love and stories written online in his memory. He kept politicians accountable and residents informed as best he could.
He always asked us to think about the who, what, when, and where of a story. Should you wish to spend a little time learning about our friend Bill, you can go here, and here.
Many times while I’m working I write clever blog posts in my head, fully meaning to write them very soon. Unfortunately (or fortunately), they usually disappear from my mind before I get back to the keyboard. If I’m lucky, I stop what I’m doing for a second and jot a voice note into my Notes app for later retrieval. If I’m further fortunate, I can actually remember what I meant to write about from that note!
Ahhh… so goes blogging. At least the way I do it these days. I really don’t know how Bill managed it all these years…
Recent days have had me preparing & shipping out the kits for the upcoming Komebukuro Treasure Bag workshop starting on the 20th. That reminds me…I need to go into the shop and halt all kit sales. I won’t have time to do any more to be mailed out in time before the workshop. BUT- you can still sign up for the workshop and use your own materials. In fact, there are people who only do the workshop and don’t order kits which is just fine. I love to see what fabrics they choose to use. If you sign up for that there is a materials list you can download and work from.
Workshop Only Link
In dyeing the linings for this set of kits, it was easy to see that one piece of lining evaded my poly detector. I thought I had done burn tests on all of them. This is kimono lining that I later (after dyeing) I applied a lightweight fusible to before cutting into the 6″x6″ squares.
I originally thought I would include a slug of un-disassembled but (indigo dyed) silk lining just for the fun of having the participants see how it is before taking it all apart but I changed my mind after remembering how a few struggled with stitching the silk without a fusible. So I dyed, washed, ironed, applied the fusible and pre-cut the squares for ease of handling. The silk lining can also be tricky to cut if you aren’t set up for it and I don’t like participants to become frustrated with the project. It was a bit more work for me but better than having everyone have to fuse and cut their own.
I try to improve each time and take what I notice from the past and move ahead.
Later today, I have a monthly check in with Ann Wasserman with past students of her quilt restoration workshops. (She’s got a new workshop in signup stage if you are interested in checking it out.) It’s just a zoom check in to see what everyone is working on and how they are doing with their restorations (I only have a little progress to report myself) and I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve been up to.
(Ok, so in the meantime the check-in with Ann and group happened. Saw one gal from my session and the rest seemed to be from the prior session. Shares of repair projects all around with one pretty extensive project that took a year to complete. Lots of tiny pieces in that one. It was fun to see the excitement around the completion of it! Maybe the most interesting conversation was about the rescuing of the records of the California Heritage Quilt Project. One of the women in the group has stepped up to rescue the records and the project. Many other states have State quilt registry projects which I learned about in Ann’s class. Some state groups have published books about them. The California group is just trying to get itself back up and running so if anyone here has the interest and time, please contact them!)
Over on Twitter (which I don’t think many readers here engage in) I have been following some great historical costume and fashion accounts. Oh my! Some of the items shown are so amazing I need a fainting couch! Also, some of my favorite Japanese sericulturist accounts are starting to contemplate their spring silkworm rearing. Will I raise silkworms again this year? I don’t know.
Right now though, there has been a good amount of unexpected snow in the Kanto region. The photos of snow in Kamakura, Yokohama, and Tokyo are beautiful and make me nostalgic for the winter snows of my childhood there.
Japan… I get emails asking about the Japan tour. With omicron rising, it’s doubtful to happen this spring. I will consider the fall if things settle down. Please sign up for the constant contact newsletter via the top link in the sidebar here. That’s the best and easiest way to stay informed on the tour. If you email me or ask to be added to the list on a social media thread, I might not get to it. Just being honest…
My son and his new wife are quarantined in Taiwan for three weeks. Like Japan, there are no tourist visas but she is a Taiwanese citizen and they are visiting family once they get through the quarantine period which is very strict. Their all time number of Covid cases is only 17,000. They are serious about maintaining their low exposure to the virus. Currently the biggest complaint is that there is too much food being delivered!
We won’t restart the tour to Japan until it is safe to do so.
There’s more but must get on with it now. Stay safe out there…check on your neighbors and friends.
Now that the holidays are over, and the sun is back out after some very much needed rain, I’m back to finish off the mystery of the silk fabric from the obi I was deconstructing here.
As you may or may not recall, there was a question as to whether the sateen silk backing of this obi was a cloth woven of silk and paper which would have been very rare. I sent a bit to my friend Velma who makes shifu and she pointed out that she could not detect any “seeds” in the weft threads as she unwove them. The seeds would be where “the strips are joined in one continuous thread by tearing a small tab of paper from the connecting strip above two threads. This tab is rolled in the same direction you intend to spin the thread creating the “seed”. This seed is one of the most notable characteristics of paper thread, and forms a unique pattern in the final woven cloth.” See here for attribution of this explanation and more about shifu.
I too had unwoven a bit more of the weft and looked at it more closely seeing that the fiber did actually look more like a cotton or hemp than paper. I did another burn test on the warp just to make sure and it really did smell like cellulose and not protein fiber-confirmed!
I also received back a reply from the Kyoto Shibori Museum who sent me the following interesting reply:
“It looks like an obi made a long time ago.The Japanese embroidery is very beautiful, and I think it’s hard to see anything like this now. The red stamp part is usually stamped with the weight of the fabric, the name of the manufacturer, the place of origin, etc., but it cannot be identified here. The kanji woven into the silk can be read as KAMI GO. It could be the name of the manufacturer/weaver or the title given to this particular obi.
KAMI means God and GO is the name of an ancient Chinese country. Japanese kimono is also called GOHUKU, but it means the kimono that GO people came to when the shape of the kimono came from China to Japan.“
The best guess at a date would be late Meiji- early Showa. So around 100 years old.
I have been wondering what fabric I would use for the January Moon of the Month Circle. To begin the year and the Moon of the Month Circle, I will be sending both moons using this beautiful obi silk lining. Can’t wait to get to the vat and make them!
A couple more projects claimed the workspace in December. first, a not so auspicious
t-shirt quilt I have been threatening/promising to make for my son trevor going on ten years now! When he went off to college and cleaned out his dresser, there were a lot of favorite t-shirts going back even to co-op preschool days. There were memories from music camps, summer camps, marching bands, favorite pokemon,surf and skate brands, and even their own rock band from when they were kids. I had cut out the graphics and backed them with a lightweight fusible and there they sat, stacked and ready to go. Over time he added a few more from college music groups, shinkendo, and Japan. As I cleared out some of the workspace I decided that THIS was the year I would finish it. I spent two days stitching them together, backing, quilting (by machine), and self binding it. Done! It’s a fun ride from preschool through college in addition to being a utilitarian quilt made with recycled fabrics. The first photo he sent me of its use had a big fluffy cat sitting on it- success!
The other project is still ongoing but I think I solved a dilemma that had been plaguing me for a while. I made this piece -a bit of an ode to fabric scraps and stitches and wasn’t sure if or how I wanted to back it. I always like the back of a stitched work-maybe just out of my own curiosity. But this has sat there feeling a bit unfinished and finally it ended up sitting next to some lovely old red lining silk. The jacquard pattern woven into the very very fine red silk are beautiful cranes with florals and vines. This auspicious pattern was probably for a wedding kimono lining or some other important kimono lining. It’s a full bolt but disassembled and stitched back into a continuous length. I decided I didn’t want to cut it to fit the width of my piece- it would ruin the full pattern. So I decided to stitch it into a tube at the proper width to stitch the lining to the back of my piece. This way, should someone ever want to reuse this beautiful silk, all you would have to do would be to unstitch it. Kind of like a kimono. Something from the Amuse Boro Museum rings in my head at times like this.
The sun has come out here and is drying the outdoor workspace after all the rain. The snow has covered our local mountains and the new year begins with this wonderful view and hope for a year of drought recovery. About a million poppy seeds and bachelor buttons have sprouted in every nook and cranny in the backyard!
I thought we might enter the 2022 New Year with a confidence and vitality that would enhance our well-being and allow us to look back on the past two pandemic years with a certain gratitude and commitment that we could go forward with lessons learned for the future.
Hmmm…that was around mid October. Yes, I’m an optimist!
Now, it is clear the better thing to do at the moment is to admit that we are not quite ready for that yet and to step into the New Year a bit gingerly, with a commitment to looking out for each other and continued determination to adjust to things as they come at us.
Here and there over the years on this blog (entering my 17th year now!) I have committed to a word at years end, and the word that I am thinking of a lot these days is an old and good friend of mine…
P E R S E V E R A N C E
Now this old friend has carried me further than any other word I can think of in these sorts of situations and is often well paired with other words…
love P E R S E V E R A N C E hope P E R S E V E R A N C E
compassion P E R S E V E R A N C E trust
P E R S E V E R A N C E kindness P E R S E V E R A N C E time
P E R S E V E R A N C E understanding P E R S E V E R A N C E
peace P E R S E V E R A N C E community
harmony
2022
There have been many occasions missed, rerouted, and cancelled this past year. There have been deaths, illnesses, pain and sorrows. Too many sorrows for sure. But there have also been births, unions, and celebrations too. We persevere. While 2022 will continue offering us challenges, we can and will rise to meet them. We really have no other choice do we? Perhaps the most important thing we can do is to maintain harmony.
For the New Year, I have a couple of new projects I am working on as in-person gatherings are still on hold. One is a textile talk series over zoom that will (mostly) be about the Japanese textiles I have collected over time. I am sorting and organizing that at the moment. This was suggested to me by a couple of people and most recently my friend Janet in one of the online classes where I went off the rails talking about some of my Japanese textiles. I received several emails telling me how much they enjoyed that spontaneous part of the workshop. OK-I hear you. I appreciate the suggestions and the feedback. Because in the end (and the beginning!), it really IS about serving the needs of customers and those that are interested in what I do. This thought of service and commitment I carry forward into the New Year. Thank you!
The other offering I am doing is a Moon of the Month Circle. It’s a subscription item to receive 2 moons a month. These will be made using some of the fabulous cloth here and each months moons will have a note about the fabric, the dye, and whatever other story the cloth wants to tell. The two moons will be sent out first class mail tucked into one of my MoonMate photo cards. Let the moon guide your inspiration!
The moons continue to be one of my most loved shop items and making a subscription item with them will help me even out the making of them as well as make my income stream more predictable in unpredictable times. Of course you can still order the separate sets of moons but these will be a bit different than what you get in those sets.
Use them in stitching, journaling, and multimedia projects, gift a subscription to a creative friend- let the moon be your inspiration!
I post this image here as I found it fascinating. As I understand it, placing the signatures in this circle presented the traders as equals, so no one person would be targeted for recriminations as a result of the request. The unity of a circle. The protection of many by the circle. Just something that make me think and wonder…
Welcome to 2022 friends…may we all look up at the same moon in peace, love, harmony AND perseverance!
Omedetou tomodachi sama!
Glennis
Here I have to tell a little of the back story to this old obi. Previously I had blogged about taking Ann Wasserman’s online workshop on quilt repair and restoration (see her blog here). I had found her online while doing some research on the crazy quilt I named Ida Belle. (while I was editing this post, Ann put up a new blog post about her latest repair/conservation quilt-a wool crazy quilt. You can see a video of her talking about it here.) In getting to know Ann a bit via email, we discovered we were quite harmonious when it came to cloth and textiles. Even Jude’s name came up as we were both early enthusiasts of Spirit Cloth (currently in wordlessly watching mode until after the New Year). In our conversations, she mentioned that she had some Japanese silk fabric that had been gifted to her many years ago and that she had no idea what to do with it or even what it was. She sent some images and asked me to look at it.
From the images she sent me, my guess was that it was an obi. It had a couple of areas of highly embroidered florals over some shibori along with large lengths of blank undecorated areas. There was what appeared to be a fold line down the center and the length of the piece indicated that it was an obi. At this point, Ann asked me if I would “adopt” it and do what I thought was best with the piece. I agreed, thinking that it would serve as a nice sample of shibori with beautiful embroidery for future in person workshops (hoping I get back to that eventually!). As you can probably guess, someone like Ann is often given and asked to “adopt” a fair amount of textiles but this one was outside of her particular realm.
When it arrived here, I looked it over and took a few of my own photos. I noticed a couple of things right away. First off, the shibori work is really very sophisticated. It impresses me that way where the the use of dyes fades into the background to give the very subtle feeling of distance. The silk used here is chirimen. Shibori techniques used are kanoko (fawn spot), boshi (capped resist), and makiage (stitched motif). I had a couple of questions so I also sent an email to the director of the Kyoto Shibori Museum. (Their latest youtube video is wonderful!) It’s obvious that the shibori was done with the final embroidery in mind. The embroidery! Wow… very beautiful nihon shishu.
I noticed that this shishu has a fairly high “loft”. I asked another friend, Mary Alice in Houston, who teaches this form of Japanese embroidery (you can find her online here) and she said that sometimes the older versions of this were padded underneath. What I ultimately discovered was that there are two layers of silk stitching (one perpendicular to the other) that provide this padding.
What I conclusively decided was that I would disassemble this obi. I decided this for a couple of reasons. The folding and storage were doing it no favors. Storage to me is “out of sight, out of mind”. I like things to be enjoyed and used. So I began to unstitch this beautifully hand stitched obi…and discover its secrets.
If you attended last week’s Komebukuro Treasure bag workshop “check in /hang out” session, after the questions and progress sharing was over, I shared my obi disassembling project. At the time I was about 3/4 through the unstitching. At that time I shared both the front and the back of the amazing embroidery. The back is also amazing and shows the wonderful and tiny stitches used to couch down the gold leafed silk threads. Goldwork embroidery is done using a core thread (usually silk or cotton) that is wrapped with a fine layer of gold leaf. Couching is the main way this thread is used as (I’m guessing) you wouldn’t want to pass this delicate gold thread through the cloth over and over. Couching is done in any number of colored silk threads for contrast and results depending on the embroiderer’s desired artistic outcome.
SInce that session, I have finished taking this piece apart and and discovered something very wonderful. The back side of the obi seemed a little odd to me. The front side of the fabric was very much a sateen-shiny with lots of long silk floats in the weave. However, the back was very matte and had an odd texture. Looking at it with a jewelers loop it was obvious that the warp and the weft were very different fibers. Unweaving a section of an end was in order! The warp was composed of very many fine silk threads. I carefully removed several rows of the much thicker and dull weft threads and did a burn test. Cellulose for sure. Then there was the issue of the feel of this textile. So papery… so I started searching online. I was slipping down another rabbit hole!
I started by searching for shifu, which is a textile woven of paper threads. My friend Velma sent me search for Susan Byrd who wrote the book A Song of Praise for Shifu – Shifu Sanka as well as made a wonderful video on preparing the thread for weaving. I’ve followed Velma for many years and have been amazed at her work and her blog, Wake Robin. I have sent her a piece to look at and give me her thoughts. After doing some reading it seems that it is likely kinujifu (kinu meaning silk and jifu, the word for shifu-paper cloth- when attached to the word kinu) if the weft thread is in fact paper. I did do a sample moon dyeing and when the fabric was wetting out, it curled up like crazy into a tight curl. I haven’t seen that before…
Even if it doesn’t turn out to be kinujifu, I have learned SO MUCH!
The center of the obi is a stiff cloth called obi shin. In many old obi the center layer is made of old cloth patched together. In fancier old obi, a special thick woven cotton cloth is used. Now days, manufactured obi shin is widely available and I’m not sure what they are made of. Perhaps cotton, perhaps poly. But over the course of time, I have collected and used a variety of old obi shine. I have made many of the moon bags from them as they have a great texture and character as well as being very sturdy. They were also often discarded and I was finding them at flea markets in Japan so someone was saving them. Part of the problem with storing these old obi with thick obi shin is that in the humidity of Japan, they tend to become damp and don’t dry easily if improperly stored. This collected moisture can easily mildew and stain (sometimes called foxing) the exterior obi fabrics. Such is the case here and there with this obi. I also moon dyed a piece of the obi shin. it dyed beautifully…
As I look at the fabric from this obi (now temporarily rolled onto three large kimono rolls), I think the best thing for the embroidery portions will be to conserve them flat in museum grade glass with UV protection. My thought is to frame the embroidery with a border of the silk/cellulose fabric. It would be great to frame it so the back side of the embroidery is visible. The main embroidery would go to Ann of course and the lesser one I would keep for a workshop sample. It just makes sense to preserve them this way unless anyone here has another idea-I’d love to hear it.
After all this, I am reminded that I have so many talented and knowledgeable friends that share the love and interest in textiles, preservation, and craft. It is truly a bounty of riches created over time!
Now if you have the time and interest- go grab a cuppa and come back to enjoy some of the links and videos noted within. There is a lot to take in!
Don’t forget, there is a new workshop forming for the 2022 Komebukuro Treasure Bags – details here.
The shortest day or the longest night? It all depends on your perspective I guess. As holiday decor begins to spill out across the neighborhoods and cooler weather dominates, solstice approaches.
It’s an odd time of year here-especially in the garden. The ginko is beginning to carpet the ground in golden glory- feeling very fallish. I turn around, and narcissus are blooming-is it spring already? I scoop fallen ginko leaves up from the alley to spread as mulch over the yard. Leaf-fall is valuable!
It updated news…we are supposed to get some significant rain in California next week- and boy do we NEED it!
The persimmons continue to ripen and I’m sharing them with a couple squirrels! I may make some persimmon walnut bars later today with the ripe ones I rescued. A nearby women’s shelter is requesting home baked goods and since I enjoy baking on a day like today but can’t afford to eat too much of it-it’s a fine solution! Yesterday I picked a box of ripe persimmons so something must be done. I was adding some scraps to the worm bin and WOW! They really seem to love the persimmon trimmings and any half critter-eaten ones. The hoshigaki continue to dry-albeit slowly due to lots of foggy mornings.
The two “not my cats” who roam the house at their own discretion seek warm spots to hibernate on colder days, only venturing out when the sun arrives to provide a warm spot for a nap among fallen leaves. My own cat Kuro chan barely likes to come indoors!
Last week, I gave the first of the zoom sessions for the Komebukuro Treasure bag workshop. It was great to see friends new and old. I am really warming up to this format. I struggled with it in the beginning but now am finding my way with it. This was the first time I have done a machine sewing project online. It seems each time I do one of these online workshops it’s a “first time”.
Teaching online makes me get creative in different ways…
During the first session we got about halfway through making our komebukuro. This week we have a “check-in” session for anyone in the group who wants to join in and show their progress or get some extra help.
I was reassured by the comments participants sent me after the session:
“Thank you bunches! Bag is complete up to where we ended yesterday…now to dig around in my “collection” to make up another one…I loved creating this for sure!!”
“Thank you for the workshop Glennis. I have followed your blog for years and have a few of your moons in my collection. I love your teaching style and I appreciate the references to traditional textiles and Japanese culture. I admire my bag even more knowing the origin of these special fabric. I look forward to next week and the many bags I am now dreaming about!“
“Thanks Glennis-This was my first zoom workshop – it was so fun!! I sewed along and made my bag lining, and am so inspired by your ideas to do the boro piece. I’m looking forward to the next session.”
It was fun to know that for some people, it was their very first Zoom experience. Others were pros and had taken many workshops of this nature-some even with me! There were several who had gone to Japan on one of the Silk Study tours, and others who are awaiting their chance when we are able to go again. Others I had never met, and some who had seen me at my booth in Houston or taken a class at the Japanese American National Museum. A great group!
In a couple of weeks, I have another komebukuro workshop- this one a private group. A reunion of sorts. We will be doing this workshop all by hand stitching as several don’t have a sewing machine. So for any of you out there who might want to book a private group for this project, let me know. You only need 6 people. You can use your own fabrics or order a kit from me. Might be a fun thing for a sewing circle group or just a group of crafty friends. Seems like in each of my online workshops there have been friends signing up to do the projects together-I love that! It’s a fun way to get together with long distance friends or whenever you can’t get together in person. I find that people also like the option to review the class via the video link.
I added a new Komebukuro Workshop session for the New Year. (I can’t even believe that time approaches!) Perhaps this might be a nice gift for someone you know. Again you can order the kits and the workshop, separate kits, and the workshop by itself.
I also added a new free “how to” video for the Holiday Cheer kits. Of course this can be used with any of the shibori ribbon colors but in the moment…’tis the Season!
I’m working on a new post which is all about some interesting things I discovered when I took apart an old obi…still going down that rabbit hole!
It was time for a little road trip, it was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and Phil’s birthday. So we got the animals and house handled by son and wife, gassed up the ’87 Volvo wagon and hit the road!
Just getting OUT of LA is the harder part but once we hit the open road it was smooth sailing and the coastal views were grand. Made a stop in Pismo and then again at San Miguel Archangel mission. The mission was closed but we walked around outside a bit and down to the little adobe museum (also closed when we were there) and walked around the outside garden area. Just one little photo…
The missions have a romanticized past of colonization in the name of religion and land expansion where the local tribes were essentially wiped out and their culture all but destroyed (what’s new?). Of the missions I have visited (maybe half+ of the 21 California missions), this one is my favorite. It seems the most authentic and hasn’t undergone a massive restoration or rebuild. But alas, closed on this trip.
We continued on and found a hotel room near some friends and took in the sights and sounds of Niles California. Saw their Christmas tree lighting and parade, ate some nice food, visited with friends. We discovered another much smaller mission in nearby Freemont so wandered over there with the Birthday Boy…
Moving along to something textile related, I brought along several small projects to work on and ended up working on just one of them. I am stitching together old vintage bow tie quilt blocks made from 30’s feed sack materials when I noticed some printing on the back of a couple of the plain pieces.
The printing says Lincoln Bleachery and Dyeworks. The one in the center I’m not sure.
So of course I looked to see what I could find out about them and ….found this.
In the company history, one of their mills was even named Sinking Funds Mill (I guess they weren’t expecting much?) Fortunately, later renamed. I also read somewhere that some of the companies selling product in feed sacks would have their company name and product info printed onto the feed sacks with washout inks so women could use all parts without any waste if they didn’t like printing in their pieces.
Before I left, I was working on these. They’re still sitting on the work table waiting for me to get back. I did get them into the shop but didn’t publicize the fact. I think I did a short livestream on making them before I left. Seems a blur now. Some Holiday Cheer. I know many of you are as concerned and depressed as I am on hearing the news of the new variant. We will wait to hear the details and continue to follow the protocols from scientists. I spent a couple of days before I left working on the Japan tour for May, but it’s looking grim again…damn!
Lots of dye work going into the upcoming workshop kit materials. Like this selection of silk linings that were dyed yesterday for the komebukuro kits. Dyed using the indigo fermentation vat and a marigold dyepot for blue and gold linings. Of course I couldn’t resist doing a little bit of green since I had those colors going. I originally thought I would use the pomegranate dyepot but it wasn’t looking as gold as I wanted. So I decided to use it for the drawstrings and cording instead.
Interestingly, the two greens were produced with the same silk and the same dyepost/vat but the order of operations was reversed. Blue over gold and gold over blue (the more olive green) created two completely different greens. A green themed komebukuro was not planned but I might just have to put together fabric for one of those-just so I can use those delicious greens.
I am using some really nice brown linen (acquired somewhere long ago/can’t remember where) for the upper band on the bags. I liked it so much on the brown version I decided to overdye it in indigo for the blue bags. It dyed a very dark/almost black blue. It will make for a nice background for anyone wanting to do sashiko stitching there and a good dark contrast for the indigo bags in general.
The “Fall” weather turned to Summer again today, likely hastening the ginko trees turning to gold. Upper 80’s low 90’s for the next few days. I really can’t wait for the leaf drop. so much beautiful mulch will blanket the garden but a couple of weeks standing under the golden ginko tree is really something to look forward to. I’ve been enjoying the photos posted online of the fall leaves turning from around the world! In Japan, we always enjoyed taking a ride on the skyways, no matter the season. They even have special busses for fall leaf viewing that take you the most beautiful locations.
And of course I’m still working on organza dyeing and pleating. There are two cats that don’t live here (and don’t like each other) constantly trying to vie for the top assistant position.
Also, please give a visit again to the Kyoto Shibori Museum youtube video page and this video. It is beyond describing what they did to accomplish this major piece of shibori.
I am really starting to look ahead to next year’s Silk Study Tour.The 2021 Silk Study Tour to Japan has now been rescheduled for May 11-26 2022. It’s looking promising finally! We are still waiting for Japan to open up to tourists again and to respond to whatever protocols will be in place. It’s so hard to anticipate what they will be, but it does look like we are moving in the right direction. As a reminder, all participants will be required to be fully vaccinated at the time of acceptance into the tour as well as meet all travel restrictions, mandates, and requirements in place by both the US and Japan at the time of travel. I will be sending out the official notice by the end of this month with applications. The way to get on this email list is to sign up here. If you have emailed me and asked me to be put on the list, I have likely directed you to this email signup. (I may have missed a few…) If you had signed up to receive info on the 2021 tour, you will still get the 2022 tour email. you don’t need to sign up again. If you can’t remember or have a new email- DO sign up again. It will filter out duplicates (or tell you you are already on the list).
The Shiborigirl Social Media Report…
As those of you who make a living (partially or completely) by making, teaching, and selling know, social media is a necessary part of what you do (or perhaps need to do more of). I am always in the position of needing to do more of it and really not finding enough time to do it! But if I don’t, sales and signups show it. Maybe you are in that position as well. (Or maybe you are a customer and are worn out from being marketed to!)
Maybe this part of the post won’t be of interest to you but here are my latest thoughts on what it takes to remain viable in the current environment.
–keep writing your blog (or get one started now!)
this is the best advice I have to give really. I’ve said this all along and I’ve never stopped. I started in 2006 and have regularly blogged ever since. Yes, there have been some times of lesser blogging (especially during times when I was attending to subscription blogs, teaching or traveling) but this is the best way to stay connected to your circles of interest. A blog is a great timeline and window into what you do in photos, videos and words. It remains there forever and you and readers can reference past posts anytime. My favorite people are from the blog and through their blogs as well. We have some very long term relationships here. I love that people can add my blog to their readers or sign up to receive my posts via email. It’s not filtered by a platform algorithm. I use WordPress and there is really much more it offers than what I can use.
-Have a website (of course) and your own online shop
Make it as simple or as complicated as you want (simple is best for me but still seems complicated!). I have used etsy in the past but never exclusively or even majorly. I’m so glad I no longer use it as the way it has evolved just does not suit me at all. The whole “star seller” thing is atrocious. Your online shop (and even etsy) is just a virtual cash register and you need to lead people to it. Don’t expect any of them to do your marketing for you.
-Have a way to collect email addresses & use this for newsletters!
I’ve used Constant Contact for many years and it’s served me well. There are lots of options on how to do this but I like self sign up lists and have mine on the top right of the blog here. (don’t wear out your subscribers with newsletters though or they might just not read them)
Use Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, TicTok, and the rest as you need or desire to.
I use FB (both a personal page and a studio page). I use Instagram here and there. Most people love IG more than I do. I’m not really a Pinterest person but will use it as a way to point people to my website etc.. I don’t do TicTok currently-just too much for me at the moment although some people use it as their #1 SM site and do it very well. YouTube is also a great resource and I really should do more with it. No matter which platforms you choose, it’s important to engage with your followers and form relationships, to offer good and interesting content. To be giving more than you receive. You do need to understand the relationship of some of these platforms to each other as some don’t play nice with each other (ie FB & Youtube). I use my Twitter mostly for local politics but do have some fascinating people I follow and interact with there- sericultureists around the world, artists, textile museum folks, and others. Some people hate Twitter and Facebook and some love one or the other or both. Maybe one of the most important things I can say about SM platforms is that YOU can curate and control your experience. If you are seeing lots of content you don’t like- then change it!
I haven’t even mentioned “boosting” or placing ads which is an art in and of itself. I dabble in it as I don’t have a lot of $ to spend on it and since my time to fully understand and make the most of it is limited I just do a small amount of it.
Maybe the most difficult thing is to keep up with all the changes and updates to these platforms and how they will affect me and my business. It really is a full time job (that I don’t want) yet don’t have enough time for if I am going to get ANYTHING done in the studio!
Of course Covid plays into all this and did I mention Zoom? I did in the last post and since then I have started doing some Facebook livestreaming on my studio page. After several trials and tribulations I mostly got it working the way I want it to- just giving a quick live video update on what I’m working on. I’m using a 2 camera view with some OBS software (OBS Studio is the one I like) that allows me to show you my work table plus my “talking head”. I do this so i can feel more present with you even though I’m using a virtual platform.
-You can always set up a linktree that you can quickly post here and there when your website isn’t quite what you want. You can also set up various linktrees to serve different purposes. My linktree.
**NOTE** in doing this post I was checking links and found that one of the links in the sidebar which was supposed to be going to my Paypal account was actually going to various random people’s paypal!! Off to fix that now! CHECK YOUR LINKS FROM TIME TO TIME! I reported it to WP and took screenshots but WOW! Sorry to anyone who might have sent $ for the Moonmates series that I didn’t acknowledge!
Overwhelmed yet? I am… now to get back to the studio…
It was two years ago that I taught one of the last indigo workshops at the Japanese American National Museum. We made komebukuro bags with dyed and stitched fabrics from the class. Several have asked for an online version of this workshop and I have spent part of this last week thinking this one through and sorting out fabrics for kits to accompany the class. Here is the after workshop post for that weekend. It was really one of my favorites. It also speaks to why we teach and why craft matters.
So- here is the link for the online Komebukuro Treasure Bag workshop. It has all the details but if you still have questions, just email me or leave a comment.
I am starting to add the pleated silk flowers to the shop. I have more to photograph and add but the main listing is there and I will just add new ones as I get the photos taken and edited. So far… here they are.
I had held back on selling them so I could show them in the recent online workshop which just completed. I have to admit, I was a little nervous with starting a new zoom workshop but after this one I’m feeling much better about the process. It takes a little bit to figure it all out and even after having done several already I wasn’t quite happy with them…especially the recorded outcomes. I have finally figured out what works for me! Not that I won’t find other tweaks and improvements-isn’t that the way though? Learning through doing. Everything is good in theory, but doing it is the key.
It’s an interesting process to switch from the way you teach in person to virtual teaching. People take workshops for so many varied reasons-whether in person or online. My goal is to always try to meet that varied need-to figure out how I can best be of service to participants through a workshop.
I really want participants to enjoy the workshop and have it meet their needs, in addition to being able to clearly see what I am doing.
I had a couple of people email and ask me how I got my worktable in the main video as well of my “mini-me” talking head going at the same time. For those of you who might need this info- here’s the process I used:
-set up a remote camera connected to your computer
-start your zoom-your computer main camera will show your talking head as usual.
-choose to “share your screen”
-in the share screen window, click to advanced
-choose “share video from second camera”
That’s it! Why it took me so long to figure this out while I did all sorts of other more complicated configurations escapes me! But we all need to learn and grow and I’m happy to share what I have learned so far- especially if it is helpful to other makers out there earn a living at what they do.
Speaking of making…I also added another Wildflower making workshop as there were some people who told me they missed signing up. You can sign up here.
Out of the wildflower workshop-which included beaders, stitchers, dollmakers, milliners and other sorts of textile stitching enthusiasts, I found that they really enjoy working with the various pleated silks so I am working on colorway sets of interesting pleated silks for the shop. Hopefully, next week I will be able to add them. Everything takes SO much time!
On yet ANOTHER note (sorry for the long catch-up post) I am still really enjoying Ann Wasserman’s quilt conservation and repair workshop. Last week’s focus was dating quilts as well as the beginning of the “triage” portion of the sessions where we look at slides submitted by participants of their quilts and what can be done to repair them (and how-using her great series of videos showing all the methods she uses). If you have any interest in this topic I highly recommend it. How can you go wrong with a group of people who want to save quilts and textiles from the rubbish heap? Saving quilts is often saving stories- and adding stories too! Ida Belle will require quite a process and I’m already thinking a little differently about repairing her than I was at the beginning of Ann’s workshop.
So to finally conclude…thanks for making it this far and I hope that some of you will join in to the komebukuro workshop! It’s going to be fun and inspired!
Shibori Girl 