My name's Cathy and I'm the founder of Zusetsu. I'm also a professional children's book illustrator.
 
When I visited the dazzling geisha dances in the Gion Kaburenjo in the spring, I was inspired to create this design for our very first tea towel.
 
The maiko is inspired by the beautiful maiko in a sky-blue kimono who helped the geisha with tea ceremony just before the dances.
 
When the geisha and maiko first come onto the theatre stage, the backdrop is a silver fusuma sliding door that is reminiscent of the Kyoto Imperial court - it is a nod to the antecedents of the dance.
 
Kyoto was bursting with cherry blossom in the spring, and so I covered the design background in cascading petals.
 
To create an impression of the vivid blue spring skies I drew the kanji for 'Kyoto' in the maiko's sky blue.
 
Kiyomizudera was drawn from a photo that I took early one morning during Gion Matsuri when the temple was very quiet and peaceful.
 
The green ribbon pattern is a beautiful design that features on a sudare bamboo screen at Shimogamo Shrine.
 
The tea pot is one that I drank tea from in a little teahouse near Shimogamo.
 
And of course I had to draw a furoshiki for the tatami floor!
 
You can see that this tea towel brings back lots of beautiful memories - I hope it brings back lots of lovely memories for you too.
 
This is our very first Zusetsu product that has been made in England. We've chosen the company that make products for the National Trust to make ours too, as we know the quality is wonderful!
 
When you buy our Kyoto Spring Geisha Dance tea towel, we will giftwrap it attractively for you.
 
It is made from 100% organic cotton.