Romor Designs

When I visit Japan each year, I love to trawl the second hand and antique stores and temple markets for old kimonos. The patterns and quality of the silk is second to none. I take these beautiful silks and make them into a loop scarf, which can be work as a single or double loop. I have a large variety of patterns available. This pattern is called bangasa is the name for the paper parasols seen in Japan and is a traditional pattern.

Kasuri is a complicated type of Japanese weaving. The work is highly technical as it involves precisely marking off and resisting areas of the warp and weft threads, which are dyed 30 times in indigo to achieve a rich, dark blue colour. These threads are then woven to make intricate and beautiful patterns. My scarves often feature two complimentary pieces of kasuri fabric, which I have join which a French seam using sashiko thread. The ends are also hand rolled.

Everyone can use a versatile bag when they are out and about. These are made from organic cotton, to which I have applied one of four different shibori patterns – "Ne maki" (bound beads), "Bai" (seashells), "Kumo" (spiderweb) and "Bomaki" (marbling). The bags all have at least six dips in the indigo to get a nice blue and are fully colourfast. They each come with a toggle closure and a small zip up pocket inside which is perfect to hold your keys, phone or some change, whilst you are out and about. They pack up small and are machine washable too.

I love colour and these bright shibori silk scarves are such fun to make. The silk is carefully ironed and folded and pressed into an equilateral triangle shaped parcel. Then colourful silk dyes are injected through different parts of the parcel from each side and steamed to fix the colour, resulting in wonderful kaleidoscope patterns. They are steamed in silver foil so the opening part is like opening a present for me as I reveal how the colours have blended and joined.

Organic bamboo cotton has a lovely soft feel to it and is very comfortable to wear, which is why I love to use these scarves to make my Shibori patterns. The cotton is woven by a women's co-operative in Kerala for the Organic Textiles Company, from whom I get the scarves. Each one has a different pattern applied to it and is then dipped at least six times in my indigo vat. This design is called "Ne maki', which involves binding beads with strong cotton thread to keep the dye out. Each individual bead creates a slightly different pattern because of the handmade nature of the process.

Vintage indigo dyed cotton shibori fabrics often have thousands of individual motifs, each applied painstakingly be hand by skilled craftspeople. The skills take many years to hone and the work is meticulous and time-consuming as it would originally have been applied down a whole bolt "tan" of fabric which is 12 yards long and 14 inches wide. I source vintage fabrics with interesting patterns from Japan and hand roll the ends, occasionally applying a small hand mend using vintage indigo fabric and sashiko thread. Each one is unique.

In the spring of 2023 I was invited to participate in an exhibition of indigo dyeing "Aizome" techniques at the Japanese Embassy in London. The exhibition ran for five months from May through September 2023 and was a great success. I made the Shibori quilt / wallhanging to showcase 32 of the many hundreds of Shibori techniques I work with and teach. They are connected my squares of plain indigo dyed fabric is different shades of blue.