Hapa Zome

By Mel Evans

Hapa Zome has been a popular Spring/Summer Forest School Activity for the last few years. The name translates from Japanese as ‘Leaf Dye’ and is often mistakenly described as a traditional Japanese art. The technique was in fact invented by Australian Fabric Artist India Flint on a trip to Japan.

‘Flint describes her experiments in the book ‘Eco Colour’

To try this at home all you need is a hammer or mallet, a flat surface to bash on, a piece of fabric and some flowers or leaves. Densely woven cotton works best and old muslin squares or bed sheets are ideal. You could even try this out on a white t-shirt.

Flowers or leaves are arranged on one side of the fabric and then the fabric is folded over.

Once the flowers and leaves are in place the bashing can begin.

After everything has been bashed you can open up the fabric and pick off all the squashed flowers and leaves to reveal the colour left behind.

The first leaves of Spring are nice and juicy and give great results as these Sycamore leaves shows.

This corn flower left a vibrant blue impression.

Finished fabric can be turned into flags, bunting and bandannas. We would love to see what you do with yours!