The history of retting, hand-tying, spinning, hand-dyeing and handweaving Bashofu abaca cloth is a long one having started in the Ryukyu Islands in the 14th century. My memory of the creation of this cloth in my family goes back to my great-grandmother who taught her twelve (12) children to process the fibers and create cloth from the Basho banana tree. In turn, my grandmother became a kimono maker and, thereafter, taught her children including my mother (and eventually me) the long process of creating cloth from the beautiful ito basho bast fibers characteristic of the cultural soul of Okinawa.
Scharine Kirchoff, Fiber Artist 