January passes. February too. Snow falls and melts away, the migrating birds are returning: the larch, the heron, the wild geese… My dyeing results are improving – this will be it, I guess.

Upscaling from samples to full-sized textiles. Letting the fabric simmer with red cabbage in an iron pot, then washing with soap – makes blue. Burying it in the compost with pomegranate shells, iron, coffee, and tea – makes brownish gray.

Next: time to think one step further. How to mount the pieces in the Sankeien Garden? Doing some sketchwork, communicating back and forth with my Japanese colleagues. Could the silk pieces be hung from the branches of those trees along the shore? Or tied to a long rope? They will need some kind of anchoring weight, too…

…and meanwhile, a growing feeling that this isn’t the way it ought to be. Handling the fabric: ironing, measuring. Thinking. This isn’t right; these pieces want something else. What?