Still Warping Up

The warp is sleyed and tied on. This is the view from the back of the Megado. The eight repeats with their coloured heddles are clearly visible

And this is the front view.  Since taking this photo I have uncrossed four or five crossing threads in the reed and sorted out the tension. I think I will re-tie it. The heddles are crammed together because of there being 60 ends to the inch and the advancing twill pattern which means several threads on the same shaft are close together. Doing repairs is no joke when the threads are so close together.


Apart from this, I have cooked, organised the family to do the Christmas tree, hung up the Christmas cards, finished the present wrapping and started the brioche dough. Brioche stuffed with oxtail tonight. Oh and I helped my son-in-law, Robin, to make sausages. We tried them for lunch - excellent.

I had a Christmas present today - three samples of donsu which is Japanese polychrome silk damask. It is so fine, it is nearly transparent. When Christmas is over, I shall examine the samples with a microscope and work out how they are done. The one on the right has gold thread in it. This was obtained from 'Tea Passage' , a tea ceremony company in the States who sell the Japanese wherewithal to make some of your own things for the tea ceremony. These samples are intended for creating shifuku which are little bags to hold the tea caddy in. I failed totally in my attempts to buy some donsu directly from Japan but I am happy with what I have acquired as it will help my researches.

Now I must make the gravy for tomorrow's lunch and check out all the other food. I hope everyone reading  this is enjoying a domestic celebration though I fear some others may not.  I always make sure we support the Salvation Army at this time of year in the hopes that some homeless are helped as a result.

Why Purple Donsu

I belong to  a group which studies Japanese textiles. In the past, I have even been into the V&A Study rooms to look at a book of Okinawan samples and subsequently  wove a piece of silk as a replica of one sample.  My version is in silk at 60 epi but the original was 90 to 100 epi.

My current interest in donsu was  stirred up by the group leader, Rod Byatt, from his remarks on  Meibutsugire. This Japanese word seems to translate as 'Famed Fabrics' or perhaps 'Named Fabrics'. These are small pieces of precious fabric which have been made into containers for the precious articles used in the Tea Ceremony. I was taken with two types of  woven fabric.

These are two pieces of KINRAN which have been used in Buddhist ceremonies. It is a type of woven inlay but not like Theo Moorman technique. On close examination, the gold paper thread about 1 mm wide, is laid right across the fabric from side to side. Where it does not show in the pattern on the front, it just disappears behind. A friend is getting me some gold paper thread from Japan and I shall have a go at this.

The other type is DONSU. A trawl on the web will not get much that is helpful on donsu. It  originated in China and it is a small repeating pattern of polychrome damask. It is used as surrounding mount for pictures.  I do not own a piece - yet! But I have feelers out. This means I do not have any photos of my own.

There are photos in the following books

1.  Meibutsugire (Kyoto Shoin's Art Library of Japanese Textiles, No 19).
2. Susan-Marie Best, ' Meibutsu-gire. Fabrics in the Japanese Tea Cermeony', P136ff in  “Silk and stone: the art of Asia” (1996, hardback, ISBN10 1898113203).
   
   
   
   
   
   There is also what sounds like a useful article in Chanoyu Quarterly, Issue No 17, 1977. The article is by Kitamura Tokusai and is 'An Introduction to Donsu'. I will try the British Library.
   
   
   
   

Japanese Tea Mart RIKYU sells tea containers and, in some cases, the shifuku or fabric covers, with them. The fabrics are not categorised so I am guessing that they are both donsu.

The striped one does have areas which are 'drawloom-like' and that seems to be quite common in the higher class of donsu.

So that explains the donsu. The purple comes from my favourite which is gold weft on a purple warp and is Figure 12 in Reference 2 above.