Natural dyeing tools do not always fit the way we actually work when we rely only on ready-made products. Much natural dyeing begins by simmering plants to extract color, and when dyeing large pieces of fabric we make as much as 50 L of dye, so we use a very large pot. Today, I decided to make one tool that would let us work more safely with that pot.
The largest pot we use at Hitotsuya（ひとつ屋） is 40 cm in diameter and 50 cm high, and can boil 50 L of water at once. It is extremely useful for dyeing large pieces of fabric such as yukata. The problem is that ordinary cooking chopsticks are too short to reach the bottom when stirring the plants, and commercially available strainers are completely inadequate for lifting the boiled plant material out.
For stirring, a long stick can serve well enough in place of chopsticks. But I could not find any suitable substitute for the strainer. Trying to lift the plants from the bottom with a short handle, I came close to burning myself more than once.
So today I decided to make my own “custom strainer”. If the tool we need does not exist, we make one to suit our own work. That, too, is part of what makes natural dyeing tools interesting.
Natural Dyeing Tools — Making a Custom Strainer
▼ DIY!! Materials for making the custom strainer.
▼ First, drill a hole here.
▼ The strainer is screwed to a wooden handle.
Adapting Natural Dyeing Tools to a Large Pot
▼ I added a hook so it can be hung up.
▼ The base is reinforced with wire, and it’s finished!!
Now the handle reaches all the way to the bottom of the large pot, so I can lift out the plants without bringing my hands close to the boiling water. It is only a small modification, but simply having natural dyeing tools that match the way we work makes the job much easier.
And now, Hitotsuya is working with an even larger setup in “100-Liter Pot | Building a Dyeing Kamado ③ Checking the Pot on the Hearth”. As the pot gets larger, of course, we also have to rethink the tools used with it.
Natural Dyeing Tools, Made by Our Own Hands
These homemade tools support the dyeing work at Hitotsuya. Rather than forcing our work to fit commercially available products, we adapt the tools to fit our work whenever necessary. That Hitotsuya approach—linking tools to machines and then to AI—is also introduced in “Meiji-Era ‘Machines’ and Reiwa-Era AI”.