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Bringing out the natural colorsWe visited dyer Kofu Suwa, who uses natural dyes made from plants and flowers to dye threads and weaves them into textiles. Born to a family of dyers in Yonezawa, Suwa helped the family business and learned the skills naturally. |
Weaving various textilesThe Oitama region where the workshop is located, is famous for its textile industry and has a tradition of thread spinning and highly sophisticated “kasuri” pattern textile skills. Suwa’s son, Goichi, who is also a dye-weaver, showed us around the workshop. A large thread spinning machine caught our eyes. |
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The difficult process of “building” indigo Suwa has been dyeing with indigo since about 30 years ago. For indigo dyeing, you must first “build” indigo. ”Build” means to bring indigo ingredients ”sukumo” and lye together in a pot, ferment it, and have the textile absorb it. |
ACCESS
- Nonohanazome Kobo
- 2-3-61 Fukuda Machi, Yonezawa, Yamagata Prefecture
- URL http://www.omn.ne.jp/~nonohana/