Round placemat ‘red stitch’ XiaBu Ramie Cloth 9cm

Michelle : Travelling around China you often see beautiful tea tables set with fabrics, tea wares and utensils so, as I walked the side streets of Jingdezhen I was particularly drawn to a store specialising in a traditional fabric called “XiaBu” which means "the fabric of summer”.  

This store belonged to LiaoYi aka “Knife” who explained “all of the fabrics are made in a county town named WanZai in JiangXi province.  XiaBu has been a speciality handiwork of my hometown for thousands of years but in the course of industrialisation，XiaBu went away from our lives and now more and more people know nothing about it.  I love this fabric，it's beautiful, we need let more and more people know about it so that they too can appreciate its special beauty and use this natural healthy fabric in our lives. 

XiaBu is often used to dress the tea table and the XiaBu in LiaoYi’s store are made of Ramie, a perennial Asian flowering root herb of the nettle family which is seeded in March. Most ramie plants grow along the Yangtze River earning it the name “China Grass”. More absorbent than cotton breathable and resistant to bacteria and mildew Ramie is one of the strongest natural fibres even when wet.