Tuesday, April 5th: Saihitsuan Kaga Yuzen
Osaka to Kanazawa - we went to the silk dyeing museum shortly after we got settled in town. It's a very small facility that produces some of the best kimono silk in Japan. The process to make the designs on the fabric consists of several steps - designing the pattern, transferring the pattern with a special dye made from blue flowers. outlining the pattern with a rice paste to make dams that the color cannot bleed through. Then the painting of the design - that's just so amazing and all done by hand. Afterwards more rice paste and sawdust are used to make a protective cover of the design and the bulk of the fabric is dyed, again by hand, painted on in any number of patterns from a solid color to layers of shades. Then it's steamed to set the dye and strung out in the local river to wash off the excess dye and the rice paste. WOW.
