Day 1. Our trip to Chichibu to see Meisen weaving. This is outside the weaving shop. The man is the weaver. His mother made most of the delicious food which we ate with our tea after seeing everything and shopping.

The looms! It always thrills me to see the looms. These were powered by the belts and pulleys overhead.

For the Meisen technique the pattern is printed on the warp before weaving. Here you can see the supply of warp on the roller that shows the printed warp. The two layers in the photo show the printed warp threads more closely.

On this loom every other thread goes over the rod. This distorts the pattern or shifts the pattern a bit so that an image can overlap itself. Instead of a simple circle a second circle overlaps the original one in the finished design.

Here the weaver is explaining the printing process on the long printing table. Woven scarves are displayed overhead.

This is a warp that has been printed on. It will be put into the back of a loom and then will be woven. This is a very special technique done in this village in the mountains outside Tokyo. I bought the beautiful blue and white silk scarf seen at the edge of the photo.