Workshop and products
Based in Kiryu, KAZAHANA operates a hands-on workshop offering experiences in silk product manufacturing, natural plant dyeing, and hand weaving, as well as silk yarn production and sales.
Silk is used not only in textiles but also across a wide range of fields, including health, beauty, and clothing. Believing in the vast potential of silk, we are dedicated to creating meaningful products through our craftsmanship.
Hook spinning machine
This is one of the machines that characterizes Fuuka's thread making.
This machine is used to spin cotton thread, and can produce thick, textured silk thread using cocoon waste (the first thread spun by silkworms, which is usually removed) and short threads produced during the silk-reeling process.
After carding, which spins the fibers in a certain direction, the fabric is spun on a spinning machine, steamed to stop the twist, skeined, refined, wound into a cone, top-wrapped, and dyed with plants.
Since the spinning machine is not suitable for spinning long fibers, it can also be used to spin thread from refined cocoons of wild Eri silkworms.
My Design Philosophy
Roses, cherry blossoms, marigolds, cochineal, etc.
They are particularly particular about rose dyeing, and use a generous amount of roses (maikaika), which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. They dye more than ten different types of cherry blossom trees every year, each of which produces slightly different cherry blossom-colored threads.
Flamingo Loom
For the crucial weaving process, which allows all processes to be carried out within the workshop, we use a "Flamingo loom."
This loom was developed 40 years ago by the Kyoto Handloom Research Institute in response to a need for a loom that even people with mobility issues could use. This loom allows anyone to easily tension the warp threads by rotating the central part. Then, by layering threads on top of the already tensioned warp threads, even beginners can weave striped fabric. It is also easy to create houndstooth, wickerwork, lace, and double-weave fabrics.
This rotary warping machine, like the Flamingo loom, makes it easy to stretch and tension the elastic net wax silk, allowing us to create distinctive stoles with a bumpy texture or ruffled designs with only some parts shrunk.
My Design Philosophy
Because the Flamingo Loom was developed for people with disabilities, Kazahana values collaboration with them in manufacturing. Currently, we work with eight facilities to manufacture products such as Kibiso body towels and silk foam nets for washing your face.
Three of the eight facilities are engaged in sericulture, and high-quality cocoons are shipped as is. However, those that cannot be shipped are made into silk floss, dyed with plants, and spun into thread to be used in products such as neck warmers.
We also ask silkworm farmers to cut up selected cocoons that they were unable to ship, remove the pupae and pupal dregs, and refine them with soda ash to make silk floss. We then dye these with natural dyes and use them to make thread together.
Message from the CEO
I started this workshop because I wanted to create things together with people who love silk. I hope that by bringing together various thoughts and ideas, a new path for silk will be created. When I create things, I think about whether the things I make can warm people. I hope that the silk will warm both the body and the heart.
Chie Itano
Born in 1955 in Kiryu City, Gunma Prefecture, he was raised in a Kiryu silk thread shop and was in charge of planning and manufacturing silk products at Kiryu Silk Co., Ltd. He retired in 2008 and founded Kazahana. In 2017, he realized his dream of setting up a workshop on a sawtooth roof, opening a workshop in a corner of a former lace factory that is a nationally registered tangible cultural property near the Kiryu Shinmachi Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings. He is a self-proclaimed "silk artisan" who conveys the charm of silk through the sale of his own works and silk products, as well as through hands-on classes.
My Design Philosophy
To order, please contact us by phone or inquiry.