Roketsu Indigo Dyeing Workshop

This trip I wanted to add in some experiences… as I love the workshops at home. I found this fantastic setup in Kyoto that we were all on board with having a go at, so I booked it.

It wasn’t too far from where we are staying and Mari, being the amazing friend she is, went to work early to put us on the correct buses which got us very near the workshop.

The fellow who runs it gave us a quick rundown on what we do. Choose a design and an article to transfer the design to. Jeff and Rachel chose t-shirts and I chose a half sized noren (doorway hanging).

There were a billion image options… so hard to choose. The workshop was full of gorgeous examples of the art, along with lots of bits and bobs that would be used in various print creations.

Luckily we arrived a bit early as it was so hard to choose

The whole workshop was fabulous to look at.

So, anyway, time to knuckle down and start. We got a few minutes of practice time. How to dip the brushes into the hot wax, how much to scrape off before applying to the material. Too soon the practice cloth was whipped away and on with the real thing. We felt a bit under prepared haha

We were working on a light box so we could see the image… So it was basically tracing the wax over the lines.

Once that was done, we had to turn off the light box, remove the image and then retrace a second layer… Ensuring a nice whiter image to be left at the end.

I wasn’t convinced that it was going to look ok lol. And there was this cute little grannie who was running about instructing people too… She wanted me to do something to my moon…. In the end after I got it totally wrong she coloured it in for me haha.

She was very nice to Jeff and kept telling him he was doing a fantastic job!

Teachers pet…

I didn’t get pics, but once waxing was done, we got kitted up in gumboots, aprons, gauntlets and gloves and dunked the articles into the dye vat. For 8 minutes it was our job to keep them reasonably submerged.

This area was a great sloshy wet area

There was a bit of theatre as each article was taken out, wrung out and briefly pegged or hung so we could see the results!

I was rapt with my noren design…

Rachels t-shirt turned out fantastically…

(I had to take snaps later last night as I only had video of their shirts)

Rachel as also fallen in love with my favourite Japanese characters and did a lovely job with hers

Love Jeff’s tshirt too… He added the grasses freestyle and it turned out so well…

The butterfly is actually a mon… A family crest. It turned out so well!

After the first showing, the articles went back in for a wash to get rid of the wax… Very hot washes.

The first wash gets rid of about 90% of the wax then the last hot wash with soap sorts the last bit.

They are then rinsed in a few more buckets and popped into a mad spinner and finish up merely damp not wet!!

I think we were there for about 2 hours or so!! The cost was only Y3600 (maybe about $40 Australian bucks) so a very inexpensive mornings cultural activity! I’d totally do it again!!

xx