MUSUBU

Creation with each tie

With this edition I present a rug.
It's name is MUSUBU. The design is by Label Creators Mr. Iwamoto Katsuya.

The mat is made by combining Imashiro Meias' clothing samples and fishing net. Maybe I should rephrase that. The mat isn't made. What arrives are strips of fabric cut to a short length and a net of the requested size.

You then take the strips and attach them to the net to make your own mat. Of course it takes time, and you should have a decent sense of color, but everything is up to you.

There's a lot of depth to Imashiro Meias' cloth. The fabric is made using a loopwheel, one of a few left in Japan, which gives it a great feel. Making fabric this way isn't the most efficient, but by slowly winding a fine thread in a loose weave (meias) the cloth becomes soft. Imashiro Meias takes her time, paying close attention to elasticity, thickness and color so there ends up being extra material leftover.

MUSUBU uses this cloth and so it feels great. Kumagaya, who originally had the idea to make a mat, suggests you try laying down first. Let's think for a moment. Imagine your favorite shirt, nice and soft, blown out into a rug you can roll around on. Something like that.

Binding things

Now about the rug.
When I first looked at a summary of this item I thought it was very "LOHAS". Then when I finally saw it I realized I was completely off base... or rather I smelled something happy (I'm sensitive to this happy smell).

This rug is highly polished. I typically find the post-assembly outcomes of make-it-yourself kits to be entirely different from what is shown on the packaging. In other words, the designers are merely selling an idea. Not so great, right? This rug comes with cloth samples and fishing net. The rest is up to the buyer. Despite the simplicity you'll be amazed by the quality of the finished rug. It's easy. All you have to do is MUSUBU (tie).

I really like designs like this which are so... light. It's less about the design but what you make of it. That's the kind of work Label Creators does. Their work is best described as material renovation (MATE-RE-INNO), an attempt at keeping materials from being trashed. We have enough trash as it is.

I don't want to finish up by summarizing with "LOHAS", I'm just happy there are useful creations like this rug and hope we see more.

[Finally a word of caution from Kumagaya]
There's nothing to be cautious about.

Well, maybe try not to argue over color when you make MUSUBU in a group. The process of making the rug is simple. When you're done there's a great feeling of achievement and an awesome mat. Perhaps the feeling is a bit like working on a hand woven scarf with a group of friends.

The fabric is a meias knit so it will fray; it's best to hang the rug in the sun once a week. MUSUBU ships with extra strips of fabric so if the rug gets dirty just re-MUSUBU!