Weaver’s studio 3 Miyako Island

Miyako-jofu is woven with all hand-spliced warp and weft.  The yarn makers’ excellent skills are indispensable in order to make the fabric very thin, also to make the threads in such deep indigo blue, almost black.

 

Ramie plant
Several different kind of ramies are used for textile making.  The pink stems are what people call “Aka Boo(red remie)”.

 

The process of dying thread and weaving

warp preparation for dyeing	dye vats, mixture of two different kind of indigos: Tade indigo and Ryukyu indigo
	dyed warp thread

 

“Mushiro”, dyed weft threads, after woven with “Shimebata (squeeze loom)”, based on the plan calculation, dipped in the indigo vat.
The parts where squeezed remain uncolored.

cotton warps of unwoven “Mushiro”

 

In order to match the tiny double ikat, weavers keep the warp threads somewhat loose, using the pegs on the back beam…

Adjusting the pattern by using needle…

 

 
Finishing process. “Kinuta uchi”, pounding for a long time, to give the shiny and flat surface, also soften the fabric.