On my most recent trip to Japan I visited my favourite vintage textiles shop near Hida Folk Village in Takayama.

The elder lady that runs the shop is a delight. She speaks little English but way more than my Japanese but we somehow always manage to work things out!

This time she had a big box of these wonderful indigo dyed Katazome fabrics.

Katazome is dyeing using a rice paste resist with finely cut paper stencils (cutting these, Katagami, is a whole craft in itself…..).

The rice paste takes hours to steam and has to dry completely after being applied through the stencil to create the pattern.

What is amazing is that the pasted stencil is perfectly matched down a whole bolt of fabric before it gets dyed in Japanese indigo.

This is a technically demanding and highly skilled job.

These pieces are special because they have red on them, which usually means a second stencil being applied and then the pieces dyed again (although some pieces just have the colour painted on afterwards. This is still a significant amount of effort down 12 yards of fabric!)

The pattern is of turtles and cranes which represent good luck and long life in Japan.

There are two pieces available, one is slightly larger.