The veteran weaver incorporated gold thread one by one
Adjacent to the Tatami-mat room where Katsuyama-san showed me his silk yarn and Reiko-san showed me the kimono fabrics, was a studio where several veteran weavers were working on making Obis.
In this quiet countryside surrounded by rice fields, Katsuyama-san’s father, the fourth-generation Obi maker, opened this hand-weaving studio about 50 years ago. While machine weaving became mainstream even in Nishijin, the father’s move seemed against the tide.
In the studio, several veteran weavers were working. The studio had a hardwood floor, but directly underneath the loom where the weaver sat and worked, the earth was exposed. When asked, one of the Obi weavers explained to me that having enough humidity coming from the earth helps maintain a favorable silk condition when weaving.
The punctual sound of the loom’s movement was soothing.
One of the weavers opened a flat sheet of paper. Inside were gold threads, ready to be woven into the Obi. How can these thin threads be made into Obi fabrics, I wondered.
Back in the Tatami-mat room, Reiko-san showed me several Obi woven by those ladies. These Obi were all designed by Katsuyama-san. Some of Shimura-san’s silk yarn was brought here from Nagano to be made into Obi. The gold threads were meticulously woven together with the silk weft, one by one.
