Peace Banner: Osaka, Japan

On July 28th and 29th, I had the distinct pleasure of going to Osaka Montessori International School in Abeno, Osaka, Japan.  I was greeted by Alex, the head of school, Yuko, a former parent, and Rumi the classroom teacher.  We wove on cardboard looms until the floor loom was delivered by Saorinomori.   

The loom arrived with great fanfare. I quickly unpacked it and set it up.  The warp had lost some tension during transport.   Alex held the warp threads while I rewound the warp onto the roller.  Each of the 22 children patiently took turns weaving.  The younger friends, ages 3 and 4 needed help pressing the treadles, but the other children, ages 5 to 8 could weave independently.  I was amazed by their patience, concentration, and ability to follow directions.  They wouldn't even stop to get their pictures taken.   They far exceeded my expectations and showed great enthusiasm and gratitude for the opportunity to learn how to weave.   When I left on Friday they asked if I was coming back on Monday. It was very sweet.  

Pictured above is Mia age 3.   She shows great ability to hold the shuttle.

Pictured above is Noah age 5. He not only was able to weave independtly but he stood by and coached the other children so they wouldn't get confused.  

Pictured above is the finished peace banner.  I cut the picture in half because there are three children that cannot be photographed.  I will blur their faces when I get back to the US.

Kenzo Jo's Birthday

Kenzo Jo, son of Misao Jo (inventor of the Saori Method), turned 73 years old today.  Everyone in the studio sang Happy Birthday to him in English.  He shared his cake with everyone.  

Pictured above is Kenzo Jo, two of his sons, and the Saorinomori team.  Happy BIrthday, Kenzo Jo!

Kobu Weft

Kobu is linen.  To me if feels like fine jute.  The loopy yarn is a little twitchy and needs to be separated so it doesn't catch on other fibers.  Kenzo Jo stopped by my loom every hour and combed my warp.  His advice is to move any threads without tension forward and then they will eventually even themselves out.  If you add tension to the rear of the loom you will have to move your weight (clothes pin) each time the warp advances.  His advice for broken threads is to wait until you advance the warp enough  to re-thread it.  I like my idea better. I added thread, knotted it to the broken thread, and re-threaded it.  That way you have less fabric to fix at the end if you want to sew your broken thread back in the cloth.  

Here are some pictures of the linen cloth on the loom.  Many people have stopped by my loom and commented that they like the colors.

Pictured above is the finished Kobu cloth.  I am posing on the left with my mentor Kenzo Jo on the right.

Saorinomori Fashion Show

The afternoon of my first day at Saorinomori in Osaka, Japan, they had a fashion show.   Each weaver brought in two or more projects to show the other members.  I was amazed at the variety of different garments, the colors, and the style elements.  Kenzo and his son took photographs for their blog.   Many of the weavers took pictures with their cameras.  Hirome wrote notes down about thread content, design elements, and other salient points.   

The woven fabric was added to a pre-made mauve shell.

HIromi is modeling her flared pants made of Japanese paper.  

The top has braided fringe used as straps.

The collar on this coat has a clip for changing how to attach it.  On the back side the fringe is seen to the back of the coat in funky patterns like snakes and spirals.  

This jacket has an interesting plaid.  

The same warp was used for the top an skirt.  The top is more striped in appearance and the skirt has more plaid elements in it.  

I love the back on this top.  

This top is made of 11 different pieces.  When asked the weaver said it was made from a very short piece of cloth.  She used left over pieces from other projects to "patch" it together.  Her advice it to never throw anything away. 

HIromi is modeling a newsboy cap.  "Kite" pronounced k-eye-tay means to write, as in writing the news.   

Hiromi is modeling the stunning back of this vest.  The gathered parts of this vest are made of elastic yarn.  

One woman made curtains out of her fabric.  

Gumdrops

My favorite Barney song (think purple dinosaur) when my sons were little was the gumdrop song.   If all the raindrops were gumdrops and lemon drops oh what a rain it would be.   Standing outside with our mouths open wide - uhh, uhh, uhh, uhh... uhh, uhh, uhh, uhh, uhh, uhh.   If all the raindrops were gumdrops and lemon drops oh what a rain it would be.  

So, I guess it is fitting that the yarn I bought for the individual cardboard looms is called "Gumdrop" by Lion Brand.  Each skein is a bright variegated color predominately green (smoothie), pink (cherry) blue (blueberry) or orange (orange). I bought a banana colored plain yellow for the warp.   

Cardboard looms, if you have never made one are a simple project.   I bought a trifold corrugated project board and cut it into 28 lengths.  The size isn't super important, but mine are about 5"X11".  I didn't cut the notches until I got to Japan.   I couldn't find a ruler in the condo so I used the thick end of a chopstick as a width to cut my notches.   Each cardboard piece has 1/4" notches of equal number on the top and the bottom.  The corresponding notch is threaded from top to bottom and wrapped around the back.  By leaving a tail of yarn at the beginning and the end you can tie a square knot on the back side,   

I then cut different color yarn into one yard lengths.  It is not important to be exact.   I gave each child one length of each color to get started.  

Kobu Warp

Kobu.  I am not sure what it means.  I think it is Japanese paper.  One of my goals for the Japan leg of my trip is to use materials that are not readily available in the US.  Kobu is one of them.  It scares me that clothing items made of paper will need to be washed.  Paper + water = mess.   Kenzo Jo assured me that items made of Japanese paper can be washed in water just like linen.   One of my other goals is to use colors that I don't typically choose.   I love purple and blue and usually end up choosing colors with short wavelengths.  Today I chose neutrals with a pop of color.   The pop of color is LIME GREEN.  Whoa.... Way, way outside my comfort zone.  I started winding my warp with 100 threads of neutral, 50 threads of lime green, 100 threads of neutral, but then I thought this is matchy, matchy, too symmetrical.  I added 50 threads of neutral mixed with lime green.  Another feature I don't usually choose is loopy yarn.  So I chose two neutral colors of loopy yarn.  

The picture below is a basket with the cones of colored Kobu that are in my warp. My warp is in the plastic bag.  Tomorrow I will wind the warp onto the warp roller, thread the heddles, and thread the reed,   

Saori Scarf Collaboration

Faith King is a good sport, a team player, and a good friend.  Faith's second project was a scarf. The black warp was already beamed on the loom and the heddles/reed were threaded when she arrived at my parent's house.  I gave her a box with colorful cotton yarn and had her weave 40 inches.  She used a variety of techniques including floating threads, alternating two colors, multiple threads in the same pick, and looping threads.   She decided she wanted to keep the horizontal stripe appearance. Not bad for her second project.  My part of the project was to loop the scarf and weave in the warp threads from the beginning of the project.   We discussed the loop/wrap and thought we had a möbius.   Faith went home and I finished weaving in the warp threads. After I took it off the loom, I discovered that despite the manipulation Faith's scarf was a loop and not a möbius.  It turned out lovely and she's already worn it.  She's received many compliments.   It didn't turn out as originally planned, but it is beautiful.  

Orange Sakiori Vest

The Orange Sakiori vest started its life as two wall hangings. Then I took one of the two wall hangings and added a piece of jute fabric that I originally intended to make into a bike basket bag.  Mihoko helped me make it into a vest.  When I got it home I decided that I didn't like the jute piece so I took it apart and added the other wall hanging to it.

My arm holes are horizontal. They were supposed to be vertical and angled to the back.  But I cut them when I was tired.  As with construction you should measure twice and cut once.   Live and learn. 

I like the end result a lot better.  I might want to add more fabric to the front.  As is the case in Montessori it is all about the process not the end product.  

Saori Peace Banner/Scarf Prototype

Saori is no stranger to Peace Banners.  Terri Bibby, Saori Salt Springs has made an annual event of weaving them.  Bonnie Tarses added another dimension to the Peace Banners by assigning each letter of the alphabet a color based on a children's book.  At a workshop in Arles, the participants wove peace in a variety of different languages.  Each letter was woven in the designated color (from the book) for the number of rows of the position of the letter in the alphabet eg. A=1, B=2. C=3).

I contacted Bonnie to see if she was willing to do a Skype or Telephone lesson.  We were not able to coordinate our schedules.  So I developed my own color scheme based on Letter-Color Synaesthia by Cassidy Curtis (http://otherthings.com/uw/syn/).  My warp is P=Purple=16, E=Orange=5, A=Yellow=1, C=Green=3, E=Orange=5.  I wound a warp with three sets of this color scheme with black in between.

I started by weaving the weft using the same colors and numbering system.  Then I added additional colors and techniques to see how they worked with the warp.

I wove some clasped weft and some loops.

I liked the look of other colors with the warp.

Above, is a picture of the finished project.  I decided to weave a möbius cowl.  I wove the beginning warp threads into the end of the project after making a twist.  The result is an infinity scarf.

Saori Vintage Jacket Reinvisioned

I discussed my chenille jacket idea with Mihoko of Saori Worcester before beginning to weave.  She suggested that I use carpet warp for the warp because chenille can be difficult to warp.  I took her suggestion and wound the warp in four parts.

The tabby weave is variegated tan, brown, off-white, and gray chenille.  The pink chenille was doubled because it was thinner than the variegated chenille.  It is woven in basket weave.

This is the project on the loom. 

Close up of the pink basket weave.

This is the finished fabric.

The center section was maroon, pink and variegated twill (1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 1/4) and reverse twill (1/4, 3/4, 2/3. 1/2).

Mihoko is helping me clip the sections of the fabric that need to be sewn. 

I am sewing pleats into the back of the fabric and sewing the ends of the fabric into sleeves.

Mihoko suggested that I add a collar to the jacket.  After the intensive I went back home and wove additional yardage for the collar.  She was right.  It fable the coat a more "finished" look.