Sitting halfway between Kanazawa and Wajima and surrounded by farmland, Hakui comprises just a few houses, and it’s narrow streets are full of flowers. When we showed up, they told us that we were the first foreigners to visit. Good thing we did, as we were able to meet Yamatza-ki-san, whose family has been weaving ikat or kasuri for 120 years. At his workshop, they use both silk and hemp, and much of what they produce is used for summer kimonos. We were blown away by the tiny, intricate ikat patterns; Hakui is the last place on the Noto Peninsula that still makes these delicate masterpieces.

Ikat fabric is known as kasuri in Japanese, and is woven with both pre-dyed warp and weft threads. Kasuri comes from the verb kasuru which means to brush against something or to write in a blurry or scratchy manner. Japanese ikat is some of the finest we've encountered anywhere in the world. 




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