Description

Wabi-sabi, The Beauty of Artisanally Made yarns, is a storytelling and knitting pattern book for responsible knitters with beautiful photos. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese philosophy rooted in tea ceremonies. It is a ritual of purity and simplicity, handmade and irregularly shaped objects with uneven glaze, cracks, and a perverse beauty in deliberate imperfection. 

In our book, we implement this philosophy to the textile, yarn and knitting, accepting the imperfections of nature. Besides proposing unique knitting patterns, we want to create awareness and bring a bit of change to the textile industry. You will find 7 beautiful patterns and their variations designed by Eri Shimizu, Meri from Amirisu, Ayano Tanaka and Naoko Ogawa.

We link the 7 principles of Wabi-Sabi to today’s knitting explained in different chapters. Each Wabi-Sabi chapter has a story based on one of the seven principles:

• Kanso: simplicity,
• Fukinsei: asymmetry or irregularity,
• Shibumi: Beauty in the understated,
• Shizen: naturalness without pretension,
• Yugen: Subtle grace,
• Datsuzoku: freeness,
• Seijaku: tranquillity. 

Different persons wrote about the Wabi-sabi principles: Takuya, Eri’s husband, will teach us more about the Japanese tea ceremony and Kintsugi, the art of repairing. Meri from Amirisu, writing about the nature surrounding us and Tone Tobiasson, a Norwegian journalist working on sustainable fibres,