We grew our first crop of indigo! Then we used it to turn things blue.
Tag: vintage
Big Blue Boro
Closeup view of one of Carol’s favorite antique Japanese indigo boro!
Kogin Institute, Hirosaki, Aomori, Japan
I visited the Kogin Institute in Hirosaki on January 31, 2017 after visiting the Tokyo Quilt Festival, Takayama, and Osaka. It was a pleasant flight from Osaka to Hirosaki, with the view of snowy mountains most of the way, and many, many empty seats. My companion Toyo looked around the plane, counted the passengers, and…
An Anniversary, an Open House, and a Sashiko Subscription
Wow. Ten years. When I started selling online in 2005 I had my own website and an eBay store. Both are gone now, I closed them after starting my Etsy shop. There have been a lot of changes to Etsy–they went corporate awhile back–but some changes have been helpful and we’ve seen my tiny business…
Tokyo Great International Quilt Festival 2017 part 3
Some photos were taken in a hurry as I rushed from the booth to lunch, or back again. Closeups are all I have of these beautiful quilts. The geometry is complex and amazing. When people who don’t quilt think that quilters are old grannies who sit around making simple blankets, I want to show them…
Tokyo Great International Quilt Festival 2017 Part 2
I’m writing this while sitting in a Tokyo hotel, but I have so much more to tell you about this trip. Since leaving Tokyo Dome I took a train up to Takayama, another train down to Osaka, flew to Hirosaki in Aomori prefecture, then back to Tokyo again. Three weeks on the road and I’m almost ready…
Sashi.co – Interview with Keiko Futatsuya
I first stumbled onto Keiko Futatsuya’s work two years ago while searching for botanically-dyed sashiko thread. She was working with Hida Sashiko at the time, but has since moved on to produce her own work as an independent artist and designer. The quality of her work is amazing, and has developed over time to reflect…
Why is kimono fabric so narrow?
There is a lot of confusion among Westerners about this issue. We are accustomed to cutting patterns for clothing, quilts, and crafts from 42″-44″ wide bolts, so the idea that a bolt could be so much narrower–12″-15″–seems, well, foreign. Considering the width of a basic backstrap loom, the narrow fabric makes sense. Backstrap looms are easy…
Chugata, Yukata, and Katazome videos part 1 & 2
I’ve been having fun researching and learning more about Chugata (a form of double-sided stencil dyeing) this week, and how it relates to other Japanese dyeing techniques such as katazome. While I’ve had some of these fabrics for years, I hadn’t really dug into their history too much until now. Here are the first two videos…
市松人形 Antique doll kimono – My New Year Challenge – part 3
A little background on what makes a doll an Ichimatsu ningyo… 人形 Ningyo = doll. That’s the easy part. 佐野川 市松 Sanogawa Ichimatsu (1722-1762) What have come to be called Ichimatsu dolls were first produced in the Kampô and Hôreki eras (1741 – 1764), the faces designed to resemble Sanogawa Ichimatsu, a Kabuki actor who was famous for…
Time for a sale!
I brought Thomas along with me to Quilt Market this year in the hope that he would keep my spending under control, but that wasn’t the case. We did stay on budget… until he left and I had one more day at Market on my own to do a little shopping. So! This means I…
I’m in Stitch Magazine again – The Unofficial Downton Abbey Sews
This is a very yummy issue if you’re into historical and costume dramas in general and Downton Abbey in particular, which the editors at Stitch Magazine certainly are! This very special issue includes instructions to make my tsumugi silk sashiko pillow. I do carry all the supplies needed, including the fabric, but not all supplies…
A love for both the common fiber and the extraordinary textile @KimonoMomo 