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Snowflower: Our First Zusetsu Furoshiki!

  • Writer: Cathy@zusetsu
    Cathy@zusetsu
  • Jul 14, 2021
  • 3 min read

Updated: Mar 22

Snowflower furoshiki and cherry blossom
Snowflower: made in Kyoto, designed by Zusetsu

Hello everyone! We are beyond excited to announce

our first ever Zusetsu original furoshiki, Snowflower! As a furoshiki store, we always dreamed of one day having our very own, unique furoshiki. We also knew that our furoshiki would need to be absolutely perfect and truly represent who we are. It took more than a year of hard work, but we couldn't be more proud of our Snowflower❤️

The design and the name hold so much meaning to us. Most importantly, Snowflower is made in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. Our furoshiki is screen-printed by hand, using the traditional techniques passed down by generations. In this blog, we'll share our Snowflower journey - from the prototypes to the final product.

We hope you fall in love with Snowflower the way we did too x


Meet the Designer

Illustrator with furoshiki bag in a poppy field
Cathy in the poppy and daisy fields near our home in the Cotswolds

Hi, I'm Cathy! I'm the founder of Zusetsu and the designer behind our new Zusetsu Snowflower Furoshiki. I’m a children’s book illustrator with over 30 years experience of illustrating books for children’s publishers, educational publishers, and magazines here in the UK and also Europe and the USA.


When I began Zusetsu, my dream was to make a connection with the incredibly skilful artisans based in Kyoto and further afield in Japan, and to provide a platform for their products.


I love how artisan skills have been honed to the highest level and passed down through the generations. I love the high quality of the furoshiki print and textiles that we stock instore, and as I learned more about the processes I was keen to design our first Zusetsu furoshiki.



The Inspiration: the Cherry Orchard


We have a very beloved cherry orchard that we walk to across the fields, and every winter we look forward to the trees flowering once more.

cherry blossom and bee

We begin to walk that way, and look for the progress of the buds.


cherry blossom orchard in the Cotswolds

The white-flowering trees look like snow, especially as the petals scatter to the ground.



The Design: From Sketch to Print

four picked cherry blossom flowers

I picked up some of the fallen blossoms and made sketches of them, which over time evolved into our sakura design.

I used our original Japanese colour palette to illustrate the sakura petals.

screenshot of Zusetsu furoshiki Snowflower being designed in Adobe Illustrator
A screenshot of our Snowflower furoshiki being designed with a Japanese palette

We experimented with a lot of different variations of this cherry blossom design and created various prototypes.


It was very important to us that we get the right colour combinations and to see how the design would look when tied as a gift wrap.


a hand holding Zusetsu furoshiki prototype
This was our first prototype design!

We ultimately decided to keep the design elegant and understated, with scattered cherry blossoms in two shades of pink on a snow white ground. This truly brings out the beauty of the textured shantung fabric.


snowflower furoshiki wrapped gift and cherry blossom

The Creation: Screen-Printing in Kyoto


It is important to us that our furoshiki is authentic and of the same high quality as the other Kyoto furoshiki that we stock. We partnered with Mashu, a professional furoshiki screen-printing company in Kyoto, to create our design in the traditional way.


Snowflower furoshiki being screen printed in Kyoto

Our artwork has been transposed onto two screens, and the artwork is applied traditionally, by hand.


Isn’t it amazing how the cloth is laid out on these huge horizontal supports, and how each furoshiki screen is applied individually, one after the other!


They very kindly sent us these photos of our first furoshiki being created, and they took my breath away!

Zusetsu furoshiki Snowflower being screen-printed in the Kyoto workshop

Zusetsu furoshiki Snowflower being screen-printed in the Kyoto workshop

Zusetsu furoshiki Snowflower being screen-printed in the Kyoto workshop

The Name: Snowflower

snowflower furoshiki in a poppy field
Yukki with Snowflower

Now all that was left was to name our lovely furoshiki!


This was an easy decision as I always knew I wanted to name the furoshiki after Yukki! Yukki's name in Japanese means snow flower.


Snowflower truly suits our furoshiki as while the cherry blossom sakura are spring motifs, we also wanted to echo the ancient Heian poetry which describes the snow on blossoming petals.


The simple yet elegant design makes it perfect for winter gifts as well as weddings too.


The Finished Product!

We are thrilled to bits with our furoshiki, and we are so excited to launch it

here in our Zusetsu online store! You can find it instore here!


It captures the beauty of weddings, as you can see from the photo below. Our snowflower furoshiki wedding favours look so beautiful and ethereal on the wedding tables.


wedding table favour furoshiki

We hope you have enjoyed reading our Snowflower story! Thank you for reading, and see you soon!


Cathy and Yukki

xx



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furoshiki Snowflower Zusetsu pattern
Zusetsu logo with sakura blossom

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Zusetsu - An English company passionate about genuine Japanese furoshiki, tenugui and contemporary textiles and fabrics originating from the traditional, creative heritage of Kyoto, Japan. 
Find lots of ideas and examples for gift wrapping using the traditional Japanese methods.
Furoshiki, the zero waste, reusable, eco friendly alternative to paper and plastic.

Registered office address: Zusetsu Ltd., Castle Nurseries, Chipping Campden, Glos., GL55 6JT United Kingdom
Company Number: 11806597. VAT Number: GB 315 9298 79. Copyright Zusetsu Ltd., 2025.
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