Sakiori is a form of Japanese rag-weaving used by peasants from the mid-18th to the mid-20th centuries to make durable, warm cloth for work garments and other utilitarian textiles. These people could not afford to buy new cotton cloth but valued it as the warmest fiber choice available in many areas of Japan during that time. Nothing was wasted as even the smallest scrap was used to construct new textiles.
How does sakiori apply to us here in the modern-day Western world, where we have an abundance of inexpensive fibers and fabrics available to us? What if we used our most prized fabric to weave new cloth, not for warmth or durability but for beauty and to prevent waste in the textile stream? Western Sakiori does just that.
This is a two-day class during which students will make a sakiori scarf from their own silk fabric. After learning about the history and use of traditional sakiori fabric in Japan, we’ll talk about how to use the discarded luxury materials readily available to us in North America to make our version of sakiori. The class will cover rag selection and preparation, weaving, and finishing techniques. Information will be sent prior to class to guide students in their rag selection. The instructor will also bring silk supplies
that everyone is free to use in class.
For more on Western sakiori, visit
westernakiori.com.
About the teacher:
Amanda Robinette is the author of
Weaving Western Sakiori (Stackpole, 2018) and several articles in
Handwoven magazine. As an environmental science graduate, she became interested in the historical Japanese practice of sakiori (rag-weaving) through her interest in recycling and frugality in weaving materials. She developed Western Sakiori to honor this tradition by using locally available materials to make fabrics that are beautiful and useful by current standards. The object of her weaving is to always make something as good as or better than the original textile she uses as rag, in the same way that Japanese peasants sought to preserve the desirable properties of cotton from the rags they could obtain. Her website and blog are at www.westernsakiori.com.
Amanda has also been practicing Tai Chi since 2008 and teaching for the Movement Arts Institute (Marysville, PA) since 2013. By making connections between Tai Chi and weaving, Amanda developed Tai Chi for Weavers (a live program and DVD), a workshop designed to help weavers address ergonomic and repetitive stress issues due to the physical nature of their work. She also developed and teaches a live workshop in Tai Chi for Fiber Artists.