Quite of late, I find myself feeling rather blue...like wonderfully addicted to blue. It was most likely triggered by my many trips to Japan surplus stores here in Baguio and La Trinidad. We were hunting for used furniture we could diy to fit in the aesthetics of our new all-white place (yup we've moved...yet again), but i got stuck staring at  those lovely white-blue porcelains. They were just so pretty! And when my artist friend Fara told me about this Japanese indigo dyeing workshop happening at Chaya, i felt it was quite serendipitous. I just got to attend it.

We were introduced to Kaoru Iwamoto, an artist from Japan who specializes on indigo dyeing using ai, a kind of leaf which when fermented could produce this really beautiful hues of blue. Kaoru was just wonderful sharing her tips and tricks despite the language barrier. She spoke in Japanese and Chaya's owner Sonoko Taguchi  translated it to us in her perfect Taglish.


We were each given a tenugui or "hand towel" for our ai zome dyeing all made of Japanese cotton. You could dye them in bright, deep blue or soft and subtle like those cute little blouses and tiny kimono.



She also taught us different techniques on shibori or "tie dyeing." This was the most fun part as we get to experiment on different designs. It was much like unwrapping Christmas presents when we finally got to snip the bands and see what patterns our knots have created.

I cant wait to sew my tenugui into something, well will show you that on another post instead.

PS. please don't mind my oh-so-messy hair here. You will be happy to hear that i have just had my hair mowed into smithereens!