I first discovered Hiroyuki Shindo’s work about 2 years ago. I can’t quite remember what led me to his work, but i was immediately taken with it. His art is very different to traditional “Arimatsu” shibori, and it is awe inspiring. If you google image search his name you will find so much to love and wonder at.

Shindo-san now lives and works in the small town of Kita, in Miyama, just outside of Kyoto. I say just because technically it’s not very far, but realistically it took us a good 1.5 – 2hrs to drive there. Those tiny narrow mountain roads are scary!

I had emailed Shindo-san before we left for Japan, to make sure his Little Indigo Museum would be open and that he would be there. It’s a good idea to do this if you want to visit, and it meant he was expecting us on that day.

So, on the most perfect summer’s day of our entire trip, we arrived at the Little Indigo Museum and met Hiroyuki Shindo, his wife and his apprentice.

We were welcomed in, and shown around his dye studio, we talked about the vats, his process, and he demonstrated his Arashi shibori technique. We talked about all the marvellous contraptions he had in his dye house to make tying and dyeing easier, and he was just incredibly open and generous with his knowledge.

Sitting in Shindo-san’s dye studio, I felt immensely calm, relaxed and grateful for the opportunity to be there. I’ve wanted to travel to meet Shindo-san for what feels like such a long time, and it felt like a sweet mixture of relief, gratitude and good luck to have finally made it. His generosity with knowledge and welcoming spirit was truly wonderful, and it might sound silly, but revitalising. His love of his craft and sharing it was very welcoming and refreshing.

Upstairs in the house (which is an old edo house, it’s amazing!) was his collection of Indigo pieces from around the world. The collection is small but well curated, and some pieces were so old they were beginning to crumble, and were kept under glass. I’ve purposefully left out pictures from the museum, because it is worth the trip to see in person.

We took a short break from our visit and went for a stroll around Kita. Nearly all the houses in the village are Edo houses, and it is just the cutest place to visit. So beautiful! We had a snack at a local cafe and also visited a folk craft museum. The town is very small, you can walk the whole area in around 20 mins.  Then we went back to say good bye to everyone at the Little Indigo Museum.

I was lucky that on the day we visited; Shindo-san’s apprentice Naoko Omae was setting up her first vat in his studio, so I got to see what the sakumo looks like before the lye is added and talk about how they set up their vats. They start new ones each summer and use it all summer long. If they use it well by the end of summer they will only be getting pale shades of blue from the vat.

Each vat uses over 20kg of sakumo (composted indigo) and over 200L of lye, which they make by boiling ash in water. Vats are fed only using sake, bran and more lye when necessary.

While speaking with Naoko-san and Shindo-san, I heard a little of her back story and about how she came to be Shindo-san’s apprentice, which was very interesting! She has also studied in the US and exhibited alongside Rowland Ricketts (a fantastic dyer!). I can’t wait to see what she starts to produce under Shindo-san’s teaching.

Walking away from the museum, I was so happy that I shed a few tears like a big soppy sook! It’s not often you get to go and do something you’ve dreamt about, and have it be more wonderful than you could have hoped for. I hope that I get the chance to visit again.

On my first day in Kyoto, I visited Aizen Kobo –  an old indigo dye house / shop. It is situated at the front of the family home, and the master dyer still works and lives there.
Aizen Kobo is the kind of store indigo dyers wished they owned. It is full of beautifully dyed textiles, and I would guess that around 25% of the textile bases used, are handwoven.

On entering the store I was shown around by an older man who I took to be the master dyer, whose English was reasonably good, and he showed me a few different fabrics, some ikat woven, some plain indigo dyed and some shibori dyed. We discussed the shibori dyed pieces the most, and he explained that each different design is stitched by a different family. Most designs are unique to each family, however some will do a few variations of one technique. Some of the cottons were priced at around $45 per metre (if memory serves) and I think the silks began somewhere round the $110 per metre mark. Which to be honest considering the intricacies of the designs, and the effort involved in dyeing each piece made the price very affordable.

It was a wonderful and interesting conversation and he talked about the difference in price not being just related to the different fibres, but also to how many dips in the indigo vat were required depending on the fibre. He said that cotton received around 80 – 100 dips, whereas some silk pieces were dipped over 200 times.

Naturally I was incredibly fascinated by this point, but unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take photos of the work, which was a shame but it is obvious that they want to protect their family business, and seemed fair.

While walking around the shop we discussed dyes, and some of the work was not naturally dyed, however most was. It was easy to pick out the stuff that wasn’t naturally dyed. There was a large rack of sashiko thread however, and they were all naturally dyed. Despite my frustration with hand stitching anything, I was unable to suppress my desire to pick some up, so I grabbed more than any non hand sewer could ever need!

The older dyer vanished after awhile as I looked at the threads so then I spoke with his son, whose English was very good, and he named all the dyes used for me, and looked them up when he couldn’t find the right translation. He was an incredibly fascinating person to talk with and we discussed the indigo dye process a little as well as the “biz” in general. He did tell me his name, but I didn’t write it down quickly enough to remember!

He said there are only 5 indigo farmers left in Japan, and 5 dye houses. While from my perspective this is a bit of a fib, I am certain he is referring to the dye houses that have been around for numerous generations, that have passed their knowledge only within their families. From what I understand, knowledge isn’t typically shared outside a family or on a wider scale – the village, and taking on an outside apprentice doesn’t seem to happen lightly.

He told me about their vat, they use fermentation vats, and it is a very old vat that they have kept going for a very long time. I can only assume longer than his life time and I’m guessing he was in his 40’s. He has always been an indigo dyer, and he talked about how if their vat died their business would too, because their specific recipe, their vat bacteria is what gives them the shades of indigo specific to their dye house. It instantly made me think of sour dough breads, and that even if you have a starter all the way from paris, if you take it into a new environment, the bacteria in that new place changes it, and then its not longer a french sourdough.

Since it was around 5pm and I knew they would be closing soon, I asked if it would be possible to come back and see their vat the next day. I think we had a small language barrier here, as he began to tell me about how they don’t dye in the rainy season and he’d need to check the weather. (It was going to rain!) I asked why they don’t dye in the rain (thinking about my adventures of dyeing under a tarp last Spring!) and he said it is because they cannot gauge the final colour without the sun. This is something I have experienced myself, and it has always peeved me. I may from now on, no longer dye in the rain!

We spent a little further time chatting, and he told me that he liked my questions. I asked what he meant and he said ” Your questions have a point, you have a reason to ask them and you aren’t just asking how we do everything. Some people come here and they just ask “what is this design? what is it called? how do you do it? We are not a school, this is our life, it is not an artform it is our trade”.

I feel like perhaps my obvious delight with their work helped to grease the wheel. I didn’t visit the shop to try and steal designs, or copy them, I went to see REAL shibori. Real indigo dyed products, which after my disappointment in Arimatsu, was a very welcome sight.

All in all my visit to Aizen Kobo was inspiring, eye opening, interesting and definitely worth a visit if you happen to be traveling to Kyoto. Even if you aren’t a dyer, the shop was a delight to visit, and anyone interested in hand crafts would find something there to enjoy.

On our first rainy day in Japan we planned to spend as much time in doors as we could, and our first port of call on my textile tour of Japan was to visit the Amuse Museum and see the Boro collection that is housed within.

I’ll be honest and say I never understood people’s obsession with boro cloth. It has spawned what seems to me to be a craft movement all of its own, and one that is not necessarily about mending and making do.  There is a lot of work out there that is boro inspired, but –  its new. It’s not made because if you don’t patch that elbow your arm might freeze off in the cold, its made purely for aesthetics. I can’t decide how I really feel about it. On one hand I can admire its beauty, on the other hand it seems to almost belittle the roots of boro. The new rise of visible mending I think is entirely different, and one I wholeheartedly stand behind – just to ensure the two are not confused.

So with the thought in mind that I cared not much for boro (having never experienced the real thing), the museum was a wonderful surprise to me.

Looking around the museum I saw a room full of clothes and bedding that were reduced to tatty rags with age.  They are stitched together again and again, randomly yet with great care. They are not beautiful in themselves. They are worn out and sad. But as you walk around reading the history of the different pieces, they change right before your eyes. They become imbued with the hardship, the struggle, the love and the care with which they were made and repaired, and beauty of their story shines through.

Each piece is a map of a life, sometimes many lives and generations. There were two pieces whose story I loved so completely. One was the Donja which looks like an extra large kimono, and is many layers of cloth, wadding and stitching. It was used as the family sleeping coat, and the whole family would get naked, and curl up inside it to keep warm.  It was beautiful to behold its many layers, but also to consider the closeness families would come to have in their lives. Even if there were squabbles, once the sun went down, they needed each other to stay warm and to stay alive.  I wonder if they would reach a point where they had such a synergy that there was never any conflict, and each person became an extension of the other.

The other was the Bodo or Bodoko which translates to being “life cloth”. The bodo is a sheet used to sleep on patched together from hemp and cotton. It was also often used as the cloth that babies were born upon, and was pieced together from clothes worn by the families ancestors.  It is a monument to the love of the family, and of welcoming new life into the family. I wont write here everything the sign in the museum says, but reading the story of this piece brought tears to my eyes. It truly embodied my feelings about my own family, and the love I have for them.

Visiting the museum gave me a new sense of why textiles are important, why the cloth, the fibre and even the fashion of it mean something.  We cover ourselves every day, we wear clothes for a multitude of reasons – to keep warm, to alert others to our sense of style, and also to display the kind of person we are, what our socio economic status is, and in many cases to show others what we care about. The clothes on our backs become us.

The gallery was empty the entire time we visited. Outside thousands of people were visiting a temple*, and exclaiming over it, spending money to write down wishes on cards, and throwing coins into prayer boxes in the hope that they might find what they were looking for. They were spending money in the museum gift shop, without bothering to enter the museum. It was such a stark juxtaposition that I was shocked, but then of course, was not. If only they would climb the gallery stairs they might find within themselves what they were looking for.

*We visited it too, and wandered around Asakusa a little. It’s very touristy but worth a side visit if you go to the museum. Visiting the temple is free.

Hello! It’s been 48 hours since I arrived back home in Melbourne from my work / play holiday in Japan. I’m slowly sifting through my photos and writing a series of blog posts about some of the places I visited and the experiences I had while there.

If you’ve been following me on instagram  then you will have seen a preview of the amazing places I visited that relate to textiles, shibori and indigo dyeing. Well, you’re in luck if you also want to see the extended story of my trip. Over the next few weeks I’ll share info and images from my journey which I hope will help anyone out there in internet land who is planning a trip to Japan to explore traditional Japanese textile crafts.

If you haven’t been following me on instagram, check it out via the sidebar for a preview of what I have coming up, or just follow along here! I’ll be posting bi-weekly until I’ve covered all the places I’ve visited that i think you’ll find interesting.

It’s been a whirlwind frenzy of activity at my place lately, but I wanted to look back at the indigo shibori workshops I held recently at the Cecilia Fox warehouse in Brunswick.

Being able to hold the workshops in such a large bright space was really wonderful, and as always, I learned a great deal from my students, as well as they hopefully learned from me! At any rate a lot of fun was had by all, and a lot of great shibori and indigo dyeing was done. A huge thank you to everyone who came along to the workshops, you guys really made it great!

I am currently trying to work out dates for some workshops in the new year, so if you are keen sign up to my mailing list over in the right sidebar to be the first to know!

I was lucky enough to have the wonderful Lillie Thompson come along to take some snaps at the first workshop to remember the day by, so consider this a picture heavy post!

The photos below were taken by me at the second workshop :)

So it’s been a few weeks since I began this story of quilt making.  I feel quite nervous to be talking about these quilts with an audience, having spent so much time working on them, worrying over them and fretting in general.  I wrote the story below earlier in the year, when I was getting ready for Domestic Frontier, where this quilt made it’s debut.

The design of this quilt is inspired by early American quilting and also Native American textiles. My father’s mother immigrated to Australia from America in 1943 and my father and his brothers and sisters will swear up and down that we have Native American Sioux heritage. Looking at old photos of my grandmother it certainly seems possible and I am quite fascinated by this idea and I hope to explore it further in my designs. I am yet to visit the part of America my grandmother came from, but I’ve spent a little time in the states, and it is one of those places I find myself impossibly drawn to. It was in the US that I first realised my love of mountains; after years of tuning out when my father talked endlessly about his mountain climbing days.

The flying geese quilt block is speculated to have been used as code by slaves during the civil war, as a reminder to follow the geese north in the summertime and escape their bondage. Whether this is true or not, the triangle feels to me to be a symbol of both freedom and safety, it is geese with their wings spread, it is mountains reaching for the stars and it is the arrowheads used to hunt food and fend off predators.

I chose to dye this quilt with Indigo and Fustic, because one, they look great together, but also because they ground each other. They are the earth and the sky and in different lights they take turns on being both strong and gentle. A lioness and her cub. I feel like this quilt is a protector, it seems like a kind of armour and I imagine it keeping it’s owner safe and warm.

I do design both a front and a back before I begin the dye work for my quilt, and my favourite moment of this quilt is actually found on the back. Tiny variations flitter like dappled sunlight in the fustic dyed cotton and it makes me think of hot summer days, lying in the shade next to a lake, listening to the sounds of the bush.

This quilt was created over a period of 6 weeks from June 12, 2014 to July 31st 2014. It is the result of 26 hours of designing, dyeing, sewing, ironing, washing, and quilting. It is not perfect, but it is just right.

Happily this quilt has found it’s home. And even more happily it is going to a FAMILY. Just as I imagined it would. It really does bring tears to my eyes to know it will be loved well.

Photos in this post taken by Lillie Thompson.

Today I am speaking all about my love of Indigo on The Planthunter.

You can check out my story here!

A quick reminder as well, I have 2 workshops coming up this month, both held at the Cecilia Fox warehouse. It’s a fabulous space, and I’m really looking forward to sharing my skills knowledge, bad jokes and day with everyone. There are only a few spaces left in each class, so sign up now! It’s possible that I may not find time in schedule to do another workshop before the end of the year, so if you’re holding out for a later date, don’t wait! I’m not sure when the next workshop will be. Click here to book.

I am so excited! It was announced today that I am a finalist in the Etsy Design Awards!!

A few weeks ago I decided to enter one of my new products, the summer quilt into the home and lifestyle category of the competition. Just to see how it went.

I am so incredibly thrilled that it went well! It’s really wonderful to have been selected as a finalist, especially when there are so many other amazing designers out there, creating great things.

The competition is judged by an excellent panel of experts, all of whom I admire greatly and I am so pleased that I have this opportunity for them to see my work. I hope they like it!

There is also a people’s choice prize which could see me flying to NYC to the etsy headquarters to do cool things, so I’d love it if you could take the time to vote for me.

It feels like a great achievement to make it this far, it would be a dream come true to win!

Since the conception of this blog I’ve been thoroughly enjoying reading all the articles, recipes, and how to’s on a near daily basis. If you are interested in slow living, the environment, food, or just great design and interesting people, then jump over and have a read!

Go on, go!

I’ve been looking for some time for a wonderful space to run my workshops in. Something large, light filled, and indoors.  Something centrally located near public transport in a vibrant inner city suburb. It is with great pleasure that I share with you that I have found all of this and more in the new Cecilia Fox warehouse in Brunswick.

Mel, the woman behind Cecilia Fox has recently landed herself an AMAZING new warehouse and is welcoming my classes to her new space. Her light filled warehouse is located in Brunswick very close to the Sydney Rd tram (19), and lots of great shops and cafes. It’s a wonderfully open and enormous space, with plenty of room for all the shibori and Indigo you can dream of. ALL of it.

Now I know it doesn’t seem possible that it could get any better, BUT IT DOES.

The super talented Julia Ostro who makes incredible cakes, tarts, donuts, and every other glorious thing you can imagine eating, is going to keep our tummies full with her creations. Each workshop will enjoy one of her seasonally baked creations, along with a fruit platter, and of course tea and coffee.

The class itself covers how to set up an Indigo vat and I demonstrate a few different techniques. After the initial instructional part of the class,  you’ll explore your creative side and I will be available to answer any and all questions as the class progresses. Everyone is supplied with a silk scarf, a tea towel and scrap fabric, so you can try out your chosen technique before creating your pièce de résistance!

Participants are invited to bring in natural cloth or yarn from home to dye in the vat if they’d like to, and further materials are available for purchase during the class.  At the end of the day, you go home with your own Indigo masterpiece, and if you’d like to explore the wonderful world of Indigo further (and frankly, who wouldn’t want to?) you can purchase an indigo kit (coming soon to the shop for workshoppers!) and keep going with all you have learned.

There are 2 class dates available to sign up for in October. The classes run from 10.30 – 3pm and have a maximum of 10 students + 1 assistant position. At this point no further classes are scheduled, however I hope to do more over summer.

If you’re a textile / arts / design student over 18, you can apply to be the assistant by emailing me on vic @ bindandfold.com

See you in class!