A Day Visiting No Guchi, Master Katazome Shokunin (Craftesman)

Yesterday was a very full day as we went into Tokyo by train (was fun) and visited a Master Craftsman who does katazome - he is a 6th Generation craftsman - and his son is the 7th generation, having given up a lucrative technician position to do so. The father demonstrated how to print katazome patterns on fabric that they do for kimonos, always 40cm wide.

The place were No Guchi San works plus examples of his work

We did what he had demonstrated and then dyed our work in huge fermented indigo dye vats (130 litres) - there were 14 vats but we only used a few - it was such fun and a dyers dream ..... one woman's glasses fell into one vat as she was dyeing and the Master fished them out.

Cotton cloth on tresses ready for applying rice paste patterns to with stencils

Some of our indigo dyeing work in progress.