Textile Trails’ 2019 tour of Bhutan was scheduled to coincide with three festivals and to give even greater opportunities for immersion and hands-on learning.
As ever, we were warmly welcomed by our Bhutanese hosts across the country.
I closed out 2018 sharing the textile & culture of Bhutan with a wonderful group of travellers who joined me on Textile Trail’s tour.
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What a wonderful time to be visiting Bhutan! I love the thrima technique and will be there in December to see this new exhibition. Continue reading
Recently I wrote about the imitation of shibori in embroideries on display in the exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson at the National Textile Museum in Washington, DC (Textiles Imitating Textiles).
A few days ago, I was privileged to view the beautiful textiles submitted for Bhutan’s national textile competition and enjoyed another embroidery that beautifully portrayed textiles.
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I wrote previously about Textiles Imitating Textiles with reference to pieces in the exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson at the National Textile Museum in Washington DC. Here are some more of the incredible pieces on display there for another fortnight. Continue reading
I am fascinated by cross-pollenations between textiles of different cultures (such as batik influenced by patola designs, or block-printed fabrics imitating Thai kit designs) as well as across media (such as stone carvings depicting patterning in clothing). In October, I finally made my first visit to the National Textile Museum in Washington DC, and saw the exhibition China: Through the Lens of John Thomson and found another skilled imitation of one textile technique in another textile medium. Continue reading
In Zoucheng, our lovely guide took us to visit 3 families who were producing zha-ran, or stitch-resist tie-dye. Continue reading
Among pieces of tie-dye I had purchased in Arimatsu in Japan, were some pieces of indigo-dyed heavy cotton. I was fascinated with the small butterfly stitch-resist patterns, but despite scouring books on shibori techniques, I failed to find out how to create them myself. Continue reading
To create a new pattern heddle storage system, the weaver begins with her loom warped with the warp threads passing through a pair of fixed heddles for the ground weave, and then behind that, each warp end passing through it’s own long vertical string heddle. Continue reading
To avoid having to pick up the required warp threads to create each row of a supplementary weft pattern, Lao-Tai weavers have devised several methods of storing these patterns on their loom. Continue reading
