While we were in Kyoto we visited Gallery Kei run by Kei Kawasaki. It was an Aladdin’s cave of wonderful textiles, weaving and stencils. Kei Kawasaki is very knowledgeable about everything in her shop and kindly talked to us about many of the items on display. She showed us some handcut stencils on mulberry paper tanned with persimmon and described how some were cut and others punched with fine holes. She also explained resist printing and ikat weaving to us. Talking about threads she explained that linden fibres are retted and then each single fibre is twisted on to the next one to form a continuous thread, which is very time consuming, however, silk and linen are spun, which is much quicker. She was very friendly, helpful and interesting and I could have stayed all day listening to her.
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