For the past couple of weeks I have been studying weaving at Kawashima Textile School in the north of Kyoto. It was a wonderful, quiet reflective experience, where I was treated to one-to-one tuition. Over the next few days I will share a series of posts showing the process that I learnt.
I will begin with dyeing the thread… First I tried natural dyes, and loved going out into the school’s garden, picking biwa (loquat) leaves and using them to colour the wool. I also tried ‘yamamomo’ which translates as ‘mountain peach’.
Depending on the metal-based ‘mordant’ used, a range of colours were possible. These (above) are the six colours I ended up with using natural dyes. And then I tried chemical dyeing…
Weighing out the chemicals to get the exact colour mix I had chosen
The lovely Hori-sensei, Master of Colour, shows me how to dye evenly
I also tried acid dyeing, which produced a more vivid palette.
These are the threads I used for weaving during my time at school.
Stay tuned for more in the coming days…
