Sometimes removing something has unexpected results. The moon below is one those examples. I accidentally left some moons in the chem vat overnight and a beautiful halo appeared along the outer rim of the moon. This was done on old cotton kimono lining material that was from one of the kimono I found at the Buddhist temple obon festival here a couple of months ago. I had done a sample overdye with it previously and it looked fine- a nice indigo blue surrounding a soft brown moon-kind of fallish and fit the months full harvest moon thoughts. I cut the pieces and started dyeing the September moons. The first batch was inadvertently left in the vat overnight and discovered the next morning as I resumed working. It had a halo effect that I loved. So I started trying to reproduce it. As I did, they (of course) all started coming out differently! All had halos in the beginning- some more (way more!) and some like this one. Several days went by as I worked on the other moons for the month and I needed a few more of the brown ones to finish the moons for the September circle. I repeated the process for the final moons and guess what? No halo! I realized that the vat was not quite as reduced as before ( we used it in the tekumo workshop) and even though it was dyeing nicely it wasn’t creating the halo.
The intensity of the vat’s reduction created a discharge effect of sorts (removing some of the color around the edges). I wonder what was used to dye this cloth brown. It was a reminder to me that even when things are seeming the “same”, they might not be. In this case, the variation of reduction in a vat can lead to strange and beautiful things- you just need to be able to see it that way. As in Life.
I had reason to sort through some old paperwork. I was dreading it and the task in general. As I proceeded it gave me an opportunity to clean out a lot of stuff that no longer needed keeping (note- I love throwing things away-especially paper, not that you can tell around here sometimes. Phil is more sentimental about some of these “things” and will often retrieve them and question my motivations so I tend to do some of this when I have the house to myself) . I came across a bag of ephemera that spanned from when I was 8 and on through to high school. It was a small bag, and I’m not even sure why these particular things were chosen out of the many that could have been saved. They are all little bits of myself starting from Gig Harbor WA through Japan and ending in Burke VA. Just tiny reminders of me.
One thing in particular stood out and even surprised me. I can’t remember when I last saw it. I did not particularly remember it at all. But it it makes sense to me and I thought I would share it with you- especially with those of you in the Moon Circle.
Moon poetry
We moved to Japan when I was in the third grade so I’m not sure if this was from Gig Harbor’s Artondale Elementary School (where the playground was filled with wooded paths lined with huckleberries that we gorged on when ripe during recess) or, if it was from Richard E. Byrd Elementary in Yokohama. Perhaps it was just something I did on my own between here and there.
(You may remember an old moon post here about a trip to the US back to Gig Harbor when we lived in Japan and went back for “home leave”.)
Nonetheless, It was a sweet discovery and reminded me of who I am. Now I’m not sure about the horse part, but perhaps in my 8 year old mind, anything was possible! And well, at 8, poems needed to rhyme! So, while I may never physically go to the moon in my lifetime, I’ve “gone there” in my mind over and over. And I’ve gone there with many of you, which really is wonderful. I look up at the moon day and night, knowing that others are doing the same all over the world at the sam time that I am.
This past week I was working on a special piece for Shio who wanted a large moon panel for a window in a door. I sought out fabric, did a couple of indigo dye tests on it, and then ordered some 12″ circle resists. I had never done a moon this large and on the first 12″ test piece I discovered that with all the clamps it did not fit into my vat! Drat! So I moved the vat to a larger container, sharpened it up and did the test piece. Seemed fine. Had to take a break for tropical storm preparation which meant tearing down the outside shade structure and studio space- and just got that put back together yesterday morning.
The rest of the day was devoted to dyeing the actual piece and it is now drying after washout. It will be ironed and hemmed to specifications before being shipped out to Japan. I enjoyed the challenge of this larger piece and the heavy hand woven cloth that was used.
the final piece dryingneeded to top it up the vat for the whole piece to fit.the nature of this hand woven cloth allows for some lovely leakage here and theremoved to a container with a large opening to accommodatethe test moon
I really like the texture of the chosen fabric. It has a good weight for the intended purpose. I think I will put the test piece into the shop where someone can put it to their own use. I did machine stitch a hem on three sides and a channel for hanging at the top but that wouldn’t mean that you couldn’t add your own stitching to it or recreate it into something of your own desire, or just hang it as is. The size is 20″ x 29″, the moon itself being 12″. In the shop now.
Surface of the moon…it almost has a sakiori feel to it.
Another lovely serendipitous moon was created last week with a scrap Richard tucked into an order for me. It was a small bit of silk obi fabric. The scrap just MADE me dye a moon onto it! There was enough to do two and only one will make it into the shop as the other is already spoken for.
Spoken for…This one goes into the shop. Each side of this moon cloth has its own feel. No right or wrong here. I can hear the sounds of summer nights in these…
Moons, circles, both eternal and unique.
I have received so many lovely notes from folks in the circle! I appreciate hearing how much you look forward to that little envelope in the mail each month. You can add yourself to the circle here.
Enter friends, into the New Year. The Year of the Rabbit.
Tsuki no usagi “HOW A RABBIT REACHED THE MOON:
One night, the Man on the Moon came down to earth disguised as a beggar. He chanced upon a Fox, a Monkey, and a Rabbit (usagi) and asked for some food. The Fox brought him fish from a stream, and the Monkey brought fruit from the trees, but the Rabbit could only offer grass. So he told the beggar to build a fire, and when it was built, threw himself onto the flames to offer himself to the Man. Amazed by the Rabbit’s generosity, the beggar transformed back into the Man on the Moon and pulled the Rabbit from the fire. To honor the Rabbit’s kindness, the Man on the Moon carried the Rabbit back to the moon to live with him. Now, if you look at the full moon, you can see the outline of the Rabbit pounding mochi on the moon.”
To all the moon makers, pathfinders, and wonderers… 明けましておめでとう! Akemashiteomedetō! Happy New Year! (December moons are running a bit late but include some stitching inspiration for the New Year of the Rabbit.)
I have some thoughts entering into this New Year 0f 2023. Some of those thoughts include words like C O N T I N U I N G, G E N T L E K I N D N E S S, L O V E, H U M O R & H E A L I N G. These are just words, but words can become thoughts and thoughts can become actions and direction. We are all still here in this C I R C L E of G E N T L E K I N D N E S S, L O V E, H U M O R & H E A L I N G. .
Perhaps you have also had a life adorned by C R A F T. Craft is an embellishment that has adorned my life. It’s been a steady companion throughout. It has offered a respite from difficult times as a child, a relief from everyday anxiety as an adult, and a comfort when a moment of focussed meditation is needed. We can stitch a hole in the fabric of our life that needs healing with a needle, thread, and a little cloth. We can encourage ourselves to head in a positive direction.
In this New Year, I will continue to note (not control) the measure of my days. All days are not measured the same. I continue to hold the circle gathered and to listen.
A new Gathering will begin soon. (ha! just as I wrote this, three black cats entered the yard right outside the window here. Not the gathering I was thinking about, but just the local black cats that seem to want to hang out together! One DOES actually live here!) This one below lives next door and has taken over the dog’s new upstairs bed as her own. A little NY humor…
it’s the Captain…
Next up will be some new offerings for 2023, and more about the 2023 Silk Study Tour to Japan in May! But now to go and finish with the December moons…
Over the past several weeks since the last blog post, I’ve written several posts here. Unfortunately, they’ve been in my head only! As I work through this and that, I take photos, record notes-all with the sincere intention of writing a post here. But alas, things get away from me and here we are! But this post covers some fun and exciting silk textiles and other various news.
First I will say that local government elections are on the horizon here in Long Beach which is one of the things that have been distracting my mind and time. We have some excellent people running this time, but as usual, we are up against the money and power that the usual machine politics has installed here. BUT, there is reason to hope this time. People are sick of it.Please put a good thought forward for us to basically save this city from over-development and financial mismanagement. It’s a lot of time and an all volunteer effort for us and our grassroots candidates.
Next, I have been working on the upcoming Refashioning Kimono workshop. There is still time to sign up and even to order a kimono it you don’t have one on hand. A shipment from Richard arrived yesterday and I’m busy getting them photographed. I’ll be adding them to the shop later today. There is a nice variety to choose from. I am going to focus this post on one particular type of silk summer weave called sha. It’s one of the three types of silk gauze fabrics that are summer weight fabrics- ra, ro and sha.
Silk gauze is a transparent open weave fabric created from a complicated intertwining of warp thread. There are three basic styles of gauze weave in Japan: ra, sha, and ro. Known collectively as usumono (literally, thin fabric), silk gauze is thought to have first been worn in the summer by court nobles, samurai and other members of the upper classes in the early 8th century.
Ra, a crisp silk mesh textile is often used in summer obi. Ro, a thin drapey silk woven with skipped rows to facilitate the air passing through the fabric on those hot, humid summer days Japan is famous for. Sha, is somewhere in-between. It’s defined by skipped or very open rows like ro, but more crisp than plain ro. It can also have various weights of weft threads- or even combine materials such as silk and hemp.
Here’s an example to clarify…
sha kimono, katazome replicating kasuri
detail of patternto show the transparency weave detail
When I first saw photos of this piece, I thought it was kasuri-where threads are dyed in advance of weaving to create the patterns on the cloth. The edges of the patterns are generally blurred as a result of this weaving technique. Sometimes the warp threads only are dyed, sometimes the weft, and sometimes both. Upon receiving this piece, I see now that this is a katazome(?) piece! It is paste resisted and the stencil or screen used to apply the resist includes the blurred edge pattern of kasuri- so to replicate one technique with another. Several stencils/screens or maybe even a sponging brush were used to create the overlay colors of subtle white and yellow over the turquoise. In the center photo above, you can appreciate the lightweight transparency of sha. In the third photo taken through a loop, you can see the weave structure. Every third pass a heavier weight and more twisted silk thread is used. Textiles inform life. From the earliest times they tell us about ourselves, our history. The materials and techniques exemplify the skill and craft development of time and place. Preserving these textiles, studying them, learning from them, and using them now satisfies something very core in me. I really enjoy coming up with ways to use these old textiles.
Like the shibori I practice, the selection of cloth to be used is a key determinate to the success of the shibori work and dyeing. I often see people practice and teach shibori without a lot of thought of the fabrics being used. I find that is so key to the result. If you are trying shibori dyeing and haven’t experimented with a wide range of fabrics I suggest you give it a try and I can pretty much guarantee you will learn a lot about cloth!
April moons are all sent out and May moons are on board! I had been anxiously awaiting a silk bolt Richard found for me and was “over the moon” when it arrived. Perfectly timed for this post, it is silk ro. So one of the two moons for the Moon Circle for May is this moon:
Each moon will be different as you can see above. Cranes are a symbol of good luck and longevity as cranes are said to live 1000 years. They actually only live 30-80 years but are in fact one of the oldest living birds on the planet with some fossils thought to go back as far as 10 million years! The little open hole in the rows allow a little seepage of indigo so the edges are not as sharp as you see on some other fabrics I’ve used for moons. Like I said above, if you explore different fabrics, you will learn a lot! The other moon will be a crescent on an old kimono silk floral…May is the flower moon…
here you can see the weave structure in this detail. It’s much more formalized than the sha weave structure
Speaking of May and flowers… Of course the garden nurtures and grows, despite very drastic and impending water restrictions which have been imposed here and set to begin June 1. I have been upping my water-saving tricks to include saving kitchen rinse water in a bucket that goes out to the garden. Fortunately, unlike my many neighbors here, I already took out every blade of grass years ago and don’t have to water much of anything except my edible garden and my fruit bearing trees. We will be restricted to one day of outdoor watering a week- likely until winter (or longer!). I expect to see more people taking out their lawns.
lots of amaryllis!awww..amaryllismystery tomatoesfloating Nancy’s seed pod boats in the pond forgot what this is calledbut it’s great right nowlarger view w/ lime tree and blue agavefiesty red pomegranate lots of flowers!
And… I found a new textile converter in LA to bias my silk. They did a great job-phew! The converter I had been using disappeared into thin air- poof! I’m having some silk cording done as well as soon as the silk thread arrives. Ordering silk thread on cones at wholesale became a complicated ordeal! Only found a light grey which will do just fine. I need it sewn with silk so it will dye with the fabric. Most converters want to sew it with cotton or poly. Nope! OK…well that’s it for now. Back to photographing and editing the kimono pics. Will probably be tomorrow when I get the rest of them up there.
What’s it called when you think you did something but you realize you actually didn’t? Jeeze… I was helping a customer on the phone with her order (she was ordering a moonbag) and I asked her which one she wanted. She said, “There’s more than one kind?”. I had to check the shop. I took all the photos for some new pieces for the shop before the KOKORO event and then must have been interrupted and never went back and finished uploading them!
Well, in any case, I’m doing it now. Oops. See the new items here.
One fun thing i’ve noticed in my own neighborhood and even among social media friends is that people are enjoying decorating and doing holiday fun a little earlier this year. With many folks home, WFH or just home and not working, holiday decorating lifts the spirit. Walking the neighborhood at night has been cheerier than usual. I got into it here myself with the neighbor girls and we made a little holiday Santa house in the front yard that my grandson could visit. I did order the plain cardboard house and we used what we had around here to decorate it-old Christmas cards, lights, wrapping paper, extra decorations, glitter glue and anything else we could find. The girls are 9 & 11 and the 9 y/o especially took to it. In fact, she spends some time in there every day she tells me, reading, playing, taking photos – she even made a little video of herself in there. So cute! My grandson was able to visit the other evening (he’s 1 1/2 years old now) and it was a very special treat for me. His favorite part was opening and closing the doors-with gusto! The little house took quite a beating but held up just fine. I had added extra duct tape reinforcement on the doors ahead of time as they seemed a little weak. Fortunately, the weather here has cooperated and there isn’t any rain in sight. If there is, I can easily move it inside for a bit. We add little things to it here and there and it’s a continual source of fun. A little holiday magic with kids is WONDERFUL! (no photos of the grandson are allowed online so the neighbor girls are all i got- but you can trust me they are cute as hell) Hope you are having a little holiday fun yourself!
decorating inside…
playing the wee red piano
sisters playing inside
as close as we get to a winter wonderland
front door
the cat and the path
looking inside from the back door
inside detail
live wreath made from yard clippings
Time continues to blend days, into months, into a whole year that is nearing its end. 2020 hindsight is about to be the story of the day as all publications/media will be doing their year end lookbacks. I’m not too sure I want to read all about that. I’m going to face forward and carry on. In case you were wondering… Milo the cat often helps me blog…he’s sitting on my lap as i write this post and this is my view…
I rewarded myself for getting my taxes 90% complete today by stitching stars into the indigo universe.
I just wanted to mention a couple of things about this wonderful silk floss I’m using. It’s about 100 years old and just divine!
Richardson’s silk floss has some interesting history and I came across this print ad.
The silkworms are cocooning quietly in the background and I’m thinking about indigo dyeing their silk as an embroidery floss of some type. It’s a big dream.
Following a path with no real plan. Going day to day. Having ideas and letting them float around until something takes hold. Willing to change direction…
For moonmates, there is a whole new page which is linked in the sidebar and I’ve uploaded the first video. I’m experimenting with keeping these moonmate videos on their own page just for the ease of your finding them in between posts on the main home page here. Like I mentioned in the last post, it’s pay as you wish there (also in the sidebar).
Next task is to update some of these pages and make a new header. It’s been a while since I did a new one. I’ve really liked this one and found some sort of comfort in seeing it whenever I loaded the blogsite. But I think it’s time…
It’s also time here to plant seeds to put out in the garden. I have quite a few already started and I feel the urge to start more. Even if I end up giving them away to neighbors I enjoy watching them sprout and grow each day. We all could use a little victory garden I think…who knows? It could become a necessity!
Trevor redid my garden fence so I don’t break my arm again!
I went out into the studio today and found this beautiful heart shape in which crystals had formed on my work table. It was a result of a session of making indigo moons in the chem vat. I had to run out and take care of some things without cleaning up my table outside. I had made a few indigo hearts too.
so fascinating and beautiful! I think of Gudrun when I look at this. filling mooncloth orders today…
Still lots going on here. Helping someone transition to hospice is walking sacred ground isn’t it? It can be everything…exhausting, peaceful, frustrating, loving, giving, taking and more. But doing a little each day… day by day…
and then a crystalline heart just appears…to remind you.
Becoming December…it arrives,and here, we never know if we will don flip flops and short sleeves or warm boots and sweaters inside the house. This year we are wearing warm shoes and sweaters. Heavy snow in the local mountains is a welcome and beautiful sight from the hilltop nearby. The ginko is busily dropping its golden carpet of leaves on the back garden, mulching it with beauty. Narcissus are blooming early. I even had the first saffron crocus bloom and more are on the way. The pomegranates exhausted themselves (and me!), and the persimmons are ripening daily. I’m sharing them with friends and neighbors and even this (not so) little guy…late at night.
In the contradiction of clashing seasons, hand fulls of strawberries can be picked every few days as they are planted where the sun seeks them out and happily seem to produce year round there-at least so far. The late eggplant and tomatoes are still heavily laden, though with this recent cold streak they will definitely slow down, but are welcoming the rain. The cold and wet has slowed the outdoor studio work but still has not vanquished me completely from getting the necessities done.
This coming weekend is the last JANM workshop featuring indigo and shibori and we will make the most of it. Many regular participants will come together for this year end creativity laboratory. No need to put the link here as it has been sold out for quite a while. There is however a “save the date” list of upcoming workshops at JANM to sign up for as soon as the museum gets them listed. You can view it here. **EDIT** JANM just emailed me to say that the January Mandala Workshop is up on the website and taking registrations. Here is the link. See the full description on the calendar page here.
Two weekends ago I taught an in-studio flower making workshop with a small group. There were some beautiful results…a garden of beauties! I’ll be adding another one of these soon. Let me know if you are interested.
A post or two ago I introduced a new item into the shop-the shibori ribbon beaded necklace kit. At the time I had not finished the instructional video but the orders received kicked me into gear getting this done. I’m offering it up to you here (free youtube video) if you are interested in seeing how this piece gets made. Perhaps you have some shibori ribbon waiting to be made into something beautiful as a gift. I am also adding this video link into the sidebar under the Feeling Free(r) page/list.
I also just added some new Mooncloth card sets to the shop. Previously, I have had photo card sets using images I have taken of my work but these card sets have actual mooncloths attached to the front of the card that can be removed and used in a project. Sets come in 3’s or 6’s, are blank inside and include an envelope. I hope you enjoy them.
I just got back from picking up my son Trevor from the airport. He has been in Japan for the past three weeks on a long awaited trip there to make new friends and surf. It was an exciting adventure and he spent time in Kyushu, Amami Oshima, and Chiba-all prime surf areas. But one of the exciting things for me was that he met up with my long time blog friend Jan Hillstead Fujikawa in Nagasaki! Long time readers of this blog might know her from her blog Oh Brother! (WhereIsSheNow) She started blogging in 2007 and hasn’t updated since 2014 but we keep up through FB and other social media. She’s an expat of over 30 years and I hope I get to meet her myself next trip. But it was kind of her to spend the day with Trevor and he also got to meet her son! In Amami Oshima, Trevor was able to meet up with our friend and surfer Ko, who showed us around Amami when we were there earlier this year. Trevor also started a blog highlighting his trip which you might enjoy. This is his first blogging experience. His blog, day one starts here.
It’s another rainy day here and the rain barrels are already overflowing. The cactus has finally stopped blooming- it was a solid 2 months of nightly blooms! Pretty amazing really. Here are a few photos collected recently from around the garden.
And a few more of some shibori ideas for this weekends workshop…shibori images on greeting cards for the holiday. I did one with a dove but tried to get too fancy and put a twig with leaves in its mouth which complicated and distorted the image making the head of the bird unclear. Will redo… Lesson: when working on small images, keep it fairly simple and use a good fine linen for best results!
Shibori Girl 