From Grass to Cord – Exploring Resonance with Plants

[This event is part of Mindful City Kamakura Week, held in Kamakura — a place embraced by mountains and sea, where layers of time quietly overlap.] 【Workshop Overview】

A quiet dialogue with nature through karamushi and handwork

Have you seen the plant karamushi (ramie) growing along riversides and in open spaces in Kamakura?

From the bark of its stem, pale bluish fibers can be taken — fibers that have long been used for clothing, rope, and bowstrings.

In this workshop, you will make yarn by hand from karamushi fibers and weave a small flat cord, experiencing a gentle sense of resonance with the plant.

◆Date & Venue

Date: Saturday, November 22, 2025, 10:00–13:00Venue: Wa café & Gallery Isa1-14-23 Komachi, Kamakura City, Kanagawa 248-0006

◆Workshop Content

• Hand-joining karamushi fibers

You will tear the fibers by hand and connect them one by one to create yarn.This is a time of quiet focus — meeting the nature of the plant and the sensations of your own hands.

• Weaving a flat cord

Using your waist and legs to tension the warp, you will weave a short flat cord on a belt loom. You will feel how yarn, body, tools, and the plant move together, producing weaving with depth.

◆Key Points

• In an age of speed and ready-made materials, this workshop is a chance to slow down and create thread by hand — rediscovering the quiet richness that comes from making something from its very beginning.

• A meditative time that brings awareness to your movements, subtle sensations, and the quiet resonance with the plant.

• You’ll touch the lived sense of skill people once carried in daily life — when the body and tools moved together as one.

• An experience of feeling your connection with the world through the body and through nature.
  

Through the action of making yarn by hand, you will feel not only what is visible but also the long background of history, the ingenuity, and the human physicality behind it.

◆Fee & Capacity

Fee: ¥6,500 per person (pay on the day)¥3,000 discount with a full-week ticket (enter coupon code)

Capacity: 6 participants Cancellation policy:2 days before–day before: 50%Same day: 100%

◆What to Bring / Clothing

Reading glasses if needed.Please wear easy-to-move-in clothing.(Please avoid wearing short skirts.)

You will sit on tatami and use your hips and legs to tension the warp.

◆Notes

• The workshop covers the process up to weaving the cord. The stone-processing example is shown on photos only as a reference.

• Photos or videos may be taken and used on SNS or websites.

• Even if you have purchased a Mindful City Kamakura Week full-week ticket, you still need to apply separately for this workshop.
  

＝＝＝＝＝＝

The yarn making process — facing the fibers given by the plant’s life and aiming for an even yarn — is one that requires immense time and care.

In weaving, you sense the subtle fluctuations of the plant, of handwork, and of your own body, as the tool, yarn, and body move together as one.

In both processes, you will find a quiet dialogue with the plant — a meditative concentration. Please observe gently the resonance between plant and body, your fine sensations, and whatever arises within you.

What is ramie:https://en.umitomk.com/material/ramie

What is ply-joining：https://en.umitomk.com/umukoto

Mindful City Kamakura Week Information

Official website:https://www.mindful-kamakura.city/

Full-week ticket purchase page:https://www.mindful-kamakura.city/event-details/opuningu-kamakuranobutai-seikaradoe-tamashi-supirichuariti-gatachinoboru

【Umito SNS】

Instagram @umitomk

Facebook @umitomk

Umito — Upcoming Schedule

• 2025/11/23Exhibition at INTO CRAFT OUR LIVES

• 2025/12/14 (Sun)From Grass to Yarn — Hand-joining Karamushi Fibers@ PLAIN Kamakura

Other dates are also available upon request.