After saying goodbye to our home stay families this morning, we boarded a bus to Utsunomiya and made a stop for our indigo dyeing experience. The indigo workshop was located in the countryside and we were met by the leaders of the experience.

When we got inside the workshop, we were shown 4 examples of patterns that we could chose to create, each made by tying rubber bands around a handkerchief in a specific way. Each Wind Ensemble member got to work rubber banding their handkerchief and put on their plastic gloves in preparation for dyeing. The next step was to soak the fabric in water to saturate it before dyeing, and then we went to the building which housed the vats of indigo dye.

Walking into the building, we were greeted by the strong aroma of the dye held in rectangular containers on the ground, which we learned were 6 feet deep! We gathered and carefully squatted around the sides of the dye containers and were instructed to hold our rubber banded handkerchiefs in the dye for 2 minutes while rubbing the dye into the fabric. Up close, the dye has a yellow-green hue that turns blue once exposed to the air. After the two minutes were up, we squeezed out the excess dye and went outside to take off the rubber bands holding the fabric together to create the patterns.

Unwrapping the handkerchiefs and seeing everyone’s creations and reactions to their work was awesome. We were all very cautious of how we moved and treated our handkerchiefs while rinsing them out, as the dye is very permanent and very blue. I wore a black shirt, but khaki pants, so I was half safe. Upon completing our workshop, we were given instructions of how to care for our indigo, washing and drying separately to avoid dye transfer.

This experience was very unique, sort of like an extreme tie-dyeing session. Being able to watch my band mates create art outside of music was a very special and fun activity, and now we will have another souvenir to take home with us from Japan!