Kakishibu Dyeing III: Simple is the way

 

Now we start actually dyeing a fabric with Kakishibu. It’s very easy. There is not much elaborated procedure as long as we simply dye cloth without making pattern.

1. First, wash the fabric with detergent to remove any chemical coating. For Kakishibu dyeing, it does not matter if the material is the protein-based, i.e. wool, silk, et al, or not, i.e. cotton, linen, et al. For the standard natural dyeing, we have to make it sure if the fabric contains protein. For cotton and linen, as they are vegetable base, before dyeing we have to dip the material in soy milk. In contrast, Kakishibu can put color for any natural fabric. It’s enough to remove the layer of chemical that can block Kakishibu.

2. Make sure the fabric is damp.

3. Concoct Kakishibu solution for dyeing. “How to” depends on the thickness of Kakishibu concentrate we purchase. For our case in Niiharu, 150-200ml Kakishibu was diluted by 200ml of water, i.e. 1 to 1, for 34g of pure cotton to be dyed. Don’t forget to use a stainless or plastic bowl, unless you plan to dye the container simultaneously.

The bottle we bought via internet.

Diluting the concentration.

4. Soak the damp fabric in Kakishibu liquid and rub the liquid into the fabric for about 10 minutes.

The cotton was put into the liquid.

Working on it.
Please use good rubber gloves in this process.

5. Squeeze the liquid and dry the fabric completely.

Drying

You can repeat the process #1-5 as much as you like while the solution remains in the bowl. The more you rub the liquid, the more the color deeper. I did the process 3 times, and here is what I obtained.

At this stage, the texture of a fabric is “stiff.” When you plan to have rough feel from the Kakishibu-dyed fabric, you should stop here. Or you can proceed to mordant. Mordant liquid will make your hardened fabric return to soft. When you use alum as mordant, the color of the fabric becomes brighter. In contrast, with iron-mordant the color turns dark grey. The standard for mordant process requires 10 minutes or so of bathing the dyed fabric in mordant. Here is what I get from my hand-made iron mordant.

Iron bathing let the color of the fabric this dark. After 10 minutes, squeeze the fabric and wash it with water. Squeeze the liquid well and dry it completely.

I simply expected the color of my mini-tote remained such grey of immediately after-drying. Nah. When the bag was dried entirely, it becomes like this.

I am very happy to meet this sudden blueish grey. Such unexpected encounter should be the charm of Kakishibu dyeing. I found the entire process uncomplicated. I think I’ll try dyeing another fabric with Kakishibu especially for some outdoor cloth. No wonder our ancestors used the liquid so often for many materials to make them sturdy. Simple is the best!

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局

Phone: 045-353-1166
FAX：045-352-3086
email: mk-hokubukoen@city.yokohama.lg.jp

Kakishibu Dyeing II: how to make iron mordant for natural dyeing

 

Let me tell you how to make iron mordant for Kakishibu dyeing. This mordant can be used for any natural dyeing for making the dyed color in darker shade. Knowing the process may be useful for natural dyeing beginners.

<Necessary items to make iron mordant for natural dyeing>

1. Steel wool: For this, I was stupid. At the beginning I thought stainless steel is steel so that we can use it for making mordant. Of course, Nah. We need good-ol steel wool. I waited for about a week with stainless steel wool to be stained and was naturally disappointed. Stained? I explain it below.

2. A glass jar with a lid

3. H2O 

4. White vinegar; the cheapest would do the perfect job. The required acidity is 4-5%.

Steel wool. No-no to stainless!

Now here is how to. It’s simple if you can avoid the obvious mistake of using stainless steel!

1. Wet the steel wool in a jar thoroughly. At this stage, no need to fill the jar of steel wool by water. Leave the jar as such without lid. The objective of this process is to rust the entire wool. The damp steel wool should react with O2 in the air. No-rid could accelerate the chemical reaction between iron and O2. But it can dry the wool quickly before becoming rusty. Keep moisturizing the steel is the key. Please be attentive.

2. When the entire steel wool becomes rusty, add water. I simply added H2O in the jar until the wool is completely soaked.

3. Add white vinegar. The ratio of water and vinegar is 1 to 1. But no need to be exact. I poured vinegar in eyeballed amount. My jar looked like

4. Close the jar with a lid and leave it in the shade for at least 24 hours. Leave the jar longer, the mordant becomes stronger. As I was in a mess with my PC Topy 5, I left it for more than two weeks, and the jar became

The darker the color, the quality of the mordant is better. I achieved it without intention. Phew, thank God. This blackish liquid is hand-made iron mordant. To use it, strain the liquid with paper coffee filter, and use it at the concentration of your choice. The more iron concentrated for the mordant, the darker the stabilized color of dyed fabric. I dunked my Kakishibu dyed linen bag in the mordant without adding water for about 15 minutes. In the stainless (Yes!) bowl, the color of the bag looked like

How it turned to the end product is a surprise. More to it, in addition to how to Kakishibu dyeing, is for next week. 😉

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局

Phone: 045-353-1166 

FAX：045-352-3086
email: mk-hokubukoen@city.yokohama.lg.jp

Kakishibu dyeing I

 

I told you to wear rubber gloves and an overall when you work with Kakishibu (; my post for September 14, 2025). The reason covering ourselves is, the strong tannic acid can remain as a stain when it lands on a fabric. i.e. Kakishibu is very strong natural dye. Just search internet for word “Kakishibu.” You’ll find numerous artists who work with the liquid for their creation of natural dyeing. This week, I begin telling you about my adventure with persimmon tannin for natural dye. Oh, one thing before starting. Kakishibu dyeing can be completed in just one day if you like. But when you take time to dry the dyed fabric before proceeding to the next step, the color can progress into something with depth. The acid reacts with O2. + UV light stimulates the response, which develops the color more. The sunlight makes wonder for Kakishibu dyeing. You can go slow and enjoy how coloring turns as time goes by. As I’m having a hubbub with my PC Topy 5, my dyeing has taken more than one month while I leave the fabric on the clothesline for days. It may be just my imagination, but it seemed to me the color evolved into subtle expression. Actually, the fabric dyed by Kakishibu will be aged for years. It would be one of the attractions the material provides.

The color of my bag when it is dyed
with Kakishibu for the first time.

My Kakishibu-dyed mini-bag,
after about a month of dyeing.
The color, I think, was stabilized in this way.

Let’s start groundwork. Here are the necessary items we need to arrange before dyeing:

1. A bowl made of stainless steel, plastics, or wood. Never made of iron, as before.

2. Kakishibu, available from Amazon et al, or handmade of 3+ years of work.

3. H2O.

4. Fabric to be dyed.

5. Mordant liquid: Alum for the final product with light earth color, or aqueous solution of iron for darker color, more to it below. Rubber gloves, and a work jacket or the like.

A bottle of store-bought Kakishibu.

Unlike the standard natural dyeing, Kakishibu does not

1. Choose fabric. Normally, we need protein-based yarn as wool, or we have to soak vegetable-based fabric, as cotton and linen, in soy milk or the like in order to make the material coated with protein. Kakishibu doesn’t care about such things. We can apply Kakishibu liquid to wood, washi paper and leather as well. Kakishibu applied material becomes “harder” and “more durable.” That’s the reason why samurai warriors applied it to their armor.

2. Require cooking with heat. It is often the case we cook a fabric in boiled staining solution for natural dyeing. No need with Kakishibu. 

So, Kakishibu dyeing is technically easy. It even does not ask mordant. If you like, you can leave the dyed fabric as such without applying mordant. On the other hand, with mordant the change in color becomes slow. Especially for fabric mordant makes the final product softer. (Wood panel applied with Kakishibu does not change its hardness with mordant, I tell you.)

Two colors.
Iron mordant is applied to dark-grey part.

Having said that, applying mordant turns the color of dyed fabric into different hues. When we use alum, the color becomes lighter. With iron, the color of the fabric is blackish gray. If we repeat “dye fabric, then apply mordant” several times, it can make the color in deeper tone. Such protean results are also the attraction of Kakishibu dyeing. For alum mordant, we just use alum powder for kitchen. We dissolve a couple of tablespoonful powder completely in 500ml of hot water, then add 2L of cold water. The alum mordant is ready. Dunk the Kakishibu-dyed and dried fabric for 10 minutes or so in a mordant. Voila, its color turns lighter. For iron mordant, it takes a bit more process to make, but no cooking. Let me explain it next week.

A dyed bag with different hue using alum and iron for mordant.
A person who made it uses die board to make this pattern.

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局

Phone: 045-353-1166 

FAX：045-352-3086
email: mk-hokubukoen@city.yokohama.lg.jp

My Topy 5, RIP

 

After 2 months of “hospitalization” to retrieve data, my Topy 5 PC has returned home. Dead. The engineers said its magnetic head inside was physically broken … Did I bump it somewhere? I don’t remember …

90% of data was rescued, including the photos of Yokohama’s forest. I must say I was lucky enough not losing all. A lesson learned. I HAVE TO MAKE BACKUP ALWAYS, even if it is a giga movie.

Please take care. Next week, I will return to Kakishibu dyeing. It has been a long and winding road this summer …

If you find a problem in the greenery of north-half of Yokohama, please make contact with

Office for the Park Greeneries in the North
北部公園緑地事務所
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局

Phone: 045-353-1166
FAX：045-352-3086
email: mk-hokubukoen@city.yokohama.lg.jp

We Are All Kids: 2025 Laboratory of Forest Art

 

2025 Laboratory of Forest Art started last Sunday, September 28. This annual art exhibition in Yokohama’s forest is, as usual, under the care of the GROUP the Creation and Voice of the Woods. 2025 show until October 26 has a theme: Forest, Art, Children. From this year, the GROUP receives funding from Asahi Ward of the City. Their patron gave them this subject. The artists have fulfilled the request joyfully. Each caption for installation has two panels. One is written with Chinese character, i.e. for adults. Another is written only with Hiragana è for kids. You can choose whichever caption you like. Now, let’s play with the art in their forest! 😊

Map for this year’s show

1. Let’s be a Tower Man! 

ISHIKURO Kazuo

“This year, I made a face-cutout towerman. Please be a Tower Man!” 

The trick of the installation should be easier to understand when you see the below photos.

You step up the ladder, put your head inside the towerman, and take a photo. Voila! You’re tower man! … Of course I did it, and my photo looks like a goblin, or ghost at best, of the forest. Creepy ... A kid before me was cuter. Anyway, please try.

Ishikuro prepares wooden horizontal bar next to the Tower Man. It is low enough for 6-year-old to mimic the Towerman-Sloth above the bar.

2. The Garden with Forest Ship
KANAI Toshikazu

“In this forest it is recommended to thin bamboo leaf oaks in order to let sunlight reach the ground and stimulate the undergrowth. By doing this, biodiversity of the place is promoted. Yes, just cutting down one oak, the dim area gets out to an open space with light. It’s fun after such forestry to meet with new environment and enjoy different vista of the forest. This year, we cut down 8 oaks for creating a space for the ship. Some are straight trees. The others are crooked. All in all, they are tough nuts to crack. One sure thing: improved ventilation. The forest wind has started to fit my body. The place is becoming my garden.”

3. Recycling – Plastic (2024)
CHIKADA Haruna

4. Recycling – Forest (2024)
CHIKADA Haruna

5. When you see a forest, The forest is seeing you
CHIKADA Haruna

“BB bullets were aimed at something. They are scattered all over the forest. What was the original target for them? Did the shooters achieve their wish by discharging them?”

Thinking BB bullet garbage in the forest is a continuous theme for Chikada. This time, she let the kids to think about the microplastic contamination and displayed mirror-like mobile installation that can reflect the forest and human with BB bullet. She said “Yeah, some ‘well-thought’ survival gamers use biodegradable BB bullets. They are VERY expensive and take at least 10 years to be decomposed. Meanwhile, we don’t know what kind of impact the bullets give to the environment. What does the forest think while letting those gamers stamping its ground, I wonder.”

6. Snake Garden (2024)
KANAI Toshikazu

7. In the Cockpit
ASADA

“Please check this QR code for the beginning of this installation.

When everybody thought each of us were a captain of Spaceship Earth, it would be difficult to be irresponsible. We should try seriously to navigate the ship better!”

8. Circling scenery
YOSHIKAWA Youichiro

“Please grab the bar and push to walk round slowly whichever direction as much as you like. What sound you hear? What smell you find? Which colour your eyes recognize? How do your soles touch the ground? You are in the Garden of Monkeygrass. How do your five senses feel the forest?”

9. Garden of Monkeygrass without Owner (2024)
YOSHIKAWA Youichiro

He’s really tending this “garden” for years already. Dwarf lilyturfs are getting larger. Meanwhile I found anticlockwise circling was for me with 2025 installation. The ground was still soft. If many people played with this year’s installation, Yoshikawa-san said the ground would be harder. Let us see.

10. Not without a Trace
KIGA Youko

“Here is a groove between planted trees. Was it a stream? If I can make it sure, I’m very happy.”

11. Dust or Gem (2024)
KIGA Youko

“In some rural communities of Japan, there is a custom called ‘Torikugurazu.’ There, people hang objects of spell at the entrance of their village. They hope it would ward off the evil and welcome good luck to their community. Now in the 21st century, the border is sometimes garnished by high concrete walls that can shut off the vista completely, or with barbed wires that must hurt anybody approaching. I guess no evil or good fortune would come to such boorish and artificial objects.”

12. Bond (Wood connect: 2024)
HARADA Akatsuki

13. Let’s make trees
HARADA Akatsuki

“Adults were kids before. Kids will be adults. Many dreams before. I was curious. I had the things I loved. I had the things I hated. I had the things I wanted to do. You are growing little by little while experience many things and learn a lot. Let’s make growing trees like you. You put in branches in holes of logs, will you?”

The idea of this installation is, you write down whatever dream or wish you have on a waterproof “leaf” the artists prepared on a branch with

these permanent markers in a tapper ware and insert the branch to a log with lots of holes. The sizes of the holes are different. Trial and error are what the artists intended. At the end of the exhibition, he hopes there are several trees with many wishes. Next to this installation, Harada-san prepared

which he called “a bridge made of logs harvested from thinning (due to oak tree wilt). They are stabilized by clamps, i.e., bond.” The bridge is also an installation fun to walk above. If you try them with kids, please hold their hand firmly and support s/he at the side.

In addition to the installations on the map, the staff of the GROUP also presented their own works.

Prayer Wheel by ISHIYAMA Katsuyuki.
Please spin them and pray for …

In the Pergola by ISHIYAMA Katsuyuki and
his students in a facility for handicapped people.

Route Art 2025 by ZAMA Kimihito,
ARAI Maki, and INO Ryoko.

They are showing the direction to the venue
from Satoyama Garden 2025 Fall.

The Group holds Weekend Marche till October 13. They sell second hand goods and small objects created by the artists. The money raised this way will fund their art creation. Participation by shopping is welcome.

Also, the Group plans several events during the exhibition. Some are held in Satoyama Garden Venue. For detail, please check here.

In the open space at the entrance there is a small stage,
 and musical instruments hand-made of bamboos are provided.
You can play with them.

On that stage there was a free-jazz concert
for the opening party featuring
SHODA Jiro and Friends.

2025 the Laboratory of Forest Art is held during September 28 – October 26 in the same forest of the previous years. Since there is no parking, a recommended access to the Forest is by bus. The most convenient transportation is a bus ride to Yokohama Zoorasia, from JR Nakayama 中山 Station, Sotetsu Tsurugamine 鶴ヶ峰 Station, or Sotetsu Mitsukyo 三ツ境 Station. Get off the bus at the North Gate of Zoorasia that is the closest to the art exhibition entrance. (Access to Zoorasia North Gate can be referred from here.) When you leave the terminal stop of Zoorasia North Gate, go back a bit along the bus road, and on your left is the sign for the GROUP. From there enter the forest. The road is a relatively wide walking promenade. Soon you can see a big banner over there saying “the Creation and Voice of the Woods 創造と森の声.”

When you find a problem in the site introduced in this post, the best contact address will be GROUP the Creation and Voice of the Woods.
https://morilab.amebaownd.com/
e-mail: morinokoe7@yahoo.co.jp

The city office which is in charge of this forest is

Zoo Division
動物園課
Yokohama Municipal Government Green Environment Bureau
横浜市みどり創造局

Phone: 045-671-4124
FAX：045-550-4650
email: mk-satoyama-garden@city.yokohama.jp