Eat Your Heart Out Tours

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Eat Your Heart Out Tours

Special Interest travels: textiles, historical, architectural, and wildlife. No horizon too far! I am Shila Desai, owner and founder of E.Y.H.O. Tours. E.Y.H.O.
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Sensitively curated small group and custom travel to traditional societies that make their own textiles, grow their own food, and live amidst historical and architectural splendour. I conceptualise, plan, organise, and lead my tours. Add expert leaders and scholars for depth of knowledge. Every trip is an intimate travel experience with like-minded people. At all times, you’ll have our personal at

tention. Our tours thrive on longterm connections with communities we visit. travellers hail from all over the world, take repeat tours, and are lively, engaged, and passionate. Follow the discussion on fb group "India Textiles and Heritage", sign up for virtual events, and subscribe to my newsletter at www.eyhotours.com

I invite you to join us! Shila

12/13/2024

Huh?
Too close to the truth? Air Transat
I hope not! Just booked to Chiapas.

12/10/2024

Japan Textile Tour 🇯🇵
The Indian subcontinent exported double ikat to Japan. In typical Japanese fashion, they improved upon it.

I thought I’d seen it all until got to Amami Island, Japan. Oshima Tsumugi is known as one of the world’s three finest textiles: French Gobelin and Persian carpets are the others. The process is mindboggling.(swipe photos)
- A pattern is made (on computer in recent times)
- warp and weft threads are loom tied separately
- the resist threads are woven in
- then the piece is dip dyed in iron rich mud and a tree tannin. Could be dip dyed up to 80x for a deep rich black
- resist is removed, fabric is ripped open for the dyed threads and spooled
- dyed spooled threads are tied and matched on the loom. A needle is used for lining up slippery silk.

Resulting fabric is exquisitely patterned without a geometric look which normal double ikat can end up displaying.

A bolt of Oshima Tsumugi kimono yardage starts at $3000 - 10,000+. The only resist at this point for me was buying it 😜

Learning something new everyday on our Japan Textile tour!

12/05/2024

Reluctant post alert. This gem might get overrun. Then again, I hardly have a massive following 😄
Highlight of Japan textile tour: spectacular Amami Island in the sub tropical south. Think Hawaii sans commercialism, a strong sense of community, great food, quirky island traditions, next level Kasuri Oshima Tsumugi textiles 😮 Essentially the best of Japan people and culture meet outstanding natural beauty. Far from the madding cities. Best for last, truly!

11/29/2024

Japan textile tour 🇯🇵
A walk in Unesco biosphere of Kinsakubaru Old Growth Forest. Home to 200 species of ferns, including the spectacular Flying Spider Monkey Fern tree. At one time this forest supplied natural dyeing material and inspiration for Amami island’s Oshima Tsumugi kasuri (double ikat), billed one of world’s top three most complex textiles

Swipe to the end…when it’s time to do your business, there’s even a pristine solar powered mechanical turning Toto compostable toilet. For that alone this forest is worth a visit! 😄
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🌲🌲🌲

11/28/2024

Japan textile tour 🇯🇵💙
We did an indigo dyeing workshop using natural indigo from India. Interesting use of ziplock bags as vats! The liquid inside had a small amount of chemical boost to deepen the colour, but otherwise process was all natural. This type of shibori is jokingly termed “rubber-jime” (as opposed to Itajime) Moment of revelation is always fun!
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11/25/2024

Japan textile tour 🇯🇵
Each artisan visit just keeps getting more incredible. Today, a specialty woman-run textile studio that has pioneered/revived weaves with gold or silver wrapped thread for a nuanced, luminescent effect. The weaving is called Nishijin nenkin fukusa. Arushi lacquer is also used as a wrap, by applying to washi paper and cutting thin strips to wrap the thread. They count the former Empress of Japan and the Governor of Tokyo at the Olympic opening ceremony as their customers.
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11/23/2024

Japan textile tour 🇯🇵
We got a good look at next level incredible brocade weaving during a curator-led tour of Nishijin textile museum. Nishijin is THE textile of Kyoto; where the fantastic obi for formal kimono comes from. Tied to Japan’s costume history, Nishijin brocade was originally created on hand looms (jhala in India), a very long and laborious process. Advent of jacquard looms changed the game. Now the sky is the limit!
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11/20/2024

On our Japan arts crafts and textile tour, a moment of calm in the restored 16thC home of a feudal samurai family.
During the Tokugawa period, samurai who risked all by plunging head first in battle — and return alive — were decorated with honours, including a traditional house like this. This house is renowned for its garden and tea room which must’ve provided much need reset after the bloody horrors of a battlefield.

Contrasts abound everywhere and at every stage in Japan’s society, culture, and history. In equal measure, a chance to contemplate and connect with one’s inner harmony.
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11/15/2024

In Tokyo for our textile tour 2024, and already researching for the next one.

Theme: Kimono

Kimono is one of Japan’s most recognised cultural emblems. Originating from the Heian period (8-12th C), the kimono carries the story of Japan in its folds, pattern, designs, textile techniques, sleeve length, hems, lined or not, and more. Few other garments capture an entire nation’s sweep of history, culture, and socio-economic development.

At the National Gallery in Tokyo, a few of the exhibits that I gazed at in awe.

11/13/2024

Japan Textiles Arts Crafts tour 🇯🇵
First stop: National Gallery exhibit on “modern” (late 1800’s) kimono This kimono “Falcon Sitting on a Fence” silk, Yuzen, is a skillful recreation of a 18th-century kimono. The purple patches were made with a unique coloring and blurring technique that resembles tie-dyeing, and is very difficult to reproduce today. It is a testament to the advanced dyeing techniques of the Daihiko team led by Noguchi Shinzo.
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We’re off to a fine start!

11/10/2024

Morocco Textiles Arts Crafts 🇲🇦
For the best rugs, textile lovers go to the Berber (Amazigh). Taking in a natural dyeing and rug weaving workshop with a wonderful women’s cooperative in southern Morocco. Women here have also learnt Fassi embroidery. The welcome and warmth is huge!
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2024 Morocco textile tour

11/09/2024

Morocco Arts Crafts Textiles tour 🇲🇦
A wonderful, enchanted day as we ventured into the Sahara after Fes. Visit to a Berber (Amazigh) cooperative for weaving demo, a delicious home-cooked lunch, Berber drumming session, before we mounted camels for a sundowner over the dunes. Evening dancing to Berber beats underneath a star-studded Saharan sky. Truly magical!
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11/07/2024

Morocco Arts Crafts Textiles 🇲🇦
Zellige is beautiful and laborious tile mosaic, a specialty of Fes and much desired for lining the walls, floors of heritage riads. Zellige, together with tadelakt (decorative plaster) gives Moroccan interiors their quintessential Arabian Nights look.
Our group took in a zellige demo Did you know, zellige is assembled upside down? One mistake and the entire piece is trashed.
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11/05/2024

Chefchaouen 💙 difficult to resist, pulling out the phone for one more perfect blue photo. Next up, Fes.
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Morocco Arts Crafts Textile tour
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11/04/2024

Chefchaouen 💙 hard to resist pulling out the phone at every turn. Here’s a sampling.

11/01/2024

All roads lead to Morocco 🇲🇦 Textiles Arts Crafts, desert, medinas, jewel box riads, hammams…. Here we come!
Like a kaleidoscope, Morocco reveals a new side at every turn. Why I love returning year after year with a group. Come along on the journey!
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10/25/2024

Off the Beaten Path Rajasthan
Continuing on from Gujarat to the romance and glory of Rajasthan. Non touristed forts, palaces, and of course, stepwells. Gujarat stepwells were built for public use and trade caravans, and served as social hubs. In Rajasthan, stepwells blend into reservoirs inside forts for defence purposes. Some are private sanctuaries for the royal women to cool off in.

Photos: from the group currently in Rajasthan

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Videos

Doing their thing

So glad I videoed this! The process of creating a masterpiece. Hiroyuki Shindo-san explains his inventions: a roller to stretch warp for shibori, and a pulley system to dunk and lift fabrics from the indigo vats. He spoke to us last year; he was feeling his age and these inventions made it easier to continue pursuing his passion. : #eyhotours #unpackagedtravels #textiletours #womenwhoexplore #slowstitch #travelstories #textileartist #textileartist #handmade #slowtravel #womencreate #indigo 💙

Double ikat patola on the loom

Creating a masterpiece in double ikat

Double ikat patola on the loom

Warp and weft are tied and natural dyed, and matched on the loom to create incredibly complex geometric patterns. One of India’s renowned weaves, coveted for centuries by queens and every Gujarati bride. Patterns on Patola are depicted on 11th C Stepwell walls. Why stepwells and textiles are intertwined. Next up on Oct’s tour

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Our Story

Deep dive into far-off places and cultures with a thematic focus. Expert-led textiles, history, architecture, culinary and more. Rough edges, soft landings allows you to push your comfort zone in a safe and supported way. Come back intrigued, wanting to learn more. Say NO to endless online trawling, wondering if you’ll be met on arrival, or if your bathroom will have running water. Our promise is to bring you to the world in a culturally and socially sensitive way. No stone unturned . . . no horizon too far!