2018 opened with a trip into rural Bengal to teach natural dye use. It was a colourful experience. We posted the whole story in three parts on the Maiwa blog.

As a follow up to this post, when we returned to Bengal in November 2018, the group we were working with had naturally dyed enough yarn to make over 500 finished saris - that's a lot of dyeing.

The Craft Council of British Columbia honoured four individuals during it's special "Evening of Recognition" in March 2018.  Here, Robert Jekyll presents Maiwa founder Charllotte Kwon with the Robert Jekyll Award for Leadership in Craft. Charllotte received the award for the year 2017 through the Canadian Craft Federation. During the evening Keith and Celia Rice-Jones  received the CCBC Hilde Gerson Award and Barbara Duncan received the CCBC Citizen of Craft Award. Congratulations to everyone.

Welcome to the gift economy. In May 2018 we grew indigo seedlings and gave them away to customers. We like to think everyone should know where natural indigo blue comes from. We also gave away tiny vials of seeds for those who wanted to try growing their own. There was an exhibition of indigo textiles from the Maiwa collection and a full day of demonstrations in front of Maiwa Supply. See more photos in our blog post.

In July we hosted another in-store event centered on natural dyes. This time it was the body adornment known as Mehndi. Found throughout India, much of the Arab world and used in many different cultures, mehndi is popular at celebrations and festivals. The designs turn the skin a reddish brown and last for a few weeks. Here is our Mehndi post.

At Maiwa East we got our indigo vats going again for a special "Stop Buy and Overdye" event in August. People brought their Maiwa garments and we dipped them in natural indigo.

In March, Charllotte Kwon presented her lecture "Waiting for the Monsoon: Slow Clothes in India" at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Charllotte had been invited to give the Annual Sinton Lecture in the Koret auditorium. Charllotte traveled with books and textiles from the Maiwa Collection.

The Granville Island Fashion Show was held in April, Maiwa was there. The show put the spotlight on Granville Island fashion. There was much to celebrate; from clothing to music to jewellery, to all the incredibly talented makers.

TSA 2018 was held in Vancouver, Canada in September. It was an honour to have so many people in town who have done so much to further our understanding of textiles. Maiwa opened up its textile collection for two events; Melody Borosevich and Sophena Kwon staged an exhibition in the Maiwa store; Sophena presented a dyeing demonstration and is seen here next to "Chronos" a time traveller costumed by Nicole Dextras. Charllotte Kwon delivered the closing plenary for  the conference: "Weavers Without Borders: The Fabric of Trade."