RYUKYU AI WORKSHOP OCTOBER 2018

 

 

This is my first try at the art of bingata. It is important to have the unfinished as well as the finished product to track your progress and better understand your mistakes for future improvements.

 

Bashofu has a wide variety of uses depending on where you get the fiber from in the stalk of the plant. The outer fibers are used for things like seat cushions, footwear, or for things like the coin purse in the featured image.  The inner stalk fibers are finer and are used for the more delicate kimonos.

When we have questions about textiles, one individual we contact is Sharine.  She is a real pleasure to work with and she has the knowledge to go along with her lineage.  These are some samples she gave us with our questions to help us distinguish what to look for in searching for bashofu examples.

Her crafts are equally as grand as her knowledge as seen in the bingata hand bag below.

 

 

These are from our collection of bashofu patterns.