Bojagi by Youngmin Lee book review
I’m really excited to share this book – “Bojagi: The Art of Korean textiles” with you.
About the book
This book is written by my friend Youngmin Lee, a Korean-American textile artist. This is the same Youngmin Lee who runs the Korean Textile Tour, which I had a chance to be a part of in 2023.
You can find the links below to get this book, and they are not affiliate links. I don’t get any commission, I’m just sharing this book because I think it’s great.
I have been researching bojagi for many years, and I have purchased every book about this topic that I could find. Most of the books I have are written in Korean or Japanese. I have an advantage for research because my husband often travels to Korea for work, so if I see something I want, I can have him bring it back for me.
But most people don’t have the opportunity to travel to Korea or order Korean books, so it’s super exciting to see this book available for English speakers.
This book is a summary of all the research I have done over the years in one place. If I had access to a book like this fifteen years ago when I first started learning about bojagi, it would have saved me a tremendous amount of time.
So what is in this book?
The first part of the book is a full history lesson of bojagi.
A bojagi is a Korean wrapping cloth. These are pieces of fabric that are used to wrap items to carry them, cover them, store them or give them as gifts.
Wrapping cloths have been used in Korean society for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Throughout history, there have been different names for these cloths depending on the person using it, what it was used for, what materials it was made from and how it was made.
This book explains all the historical detail and has beautiful photography showing many samples.
After explaining the history of bojagi, Youngmin goes on to explain all the traditional fabrics and threads that were used to make these. This was very interesting to me, because I don’t know very much about the different types of fabrics, especially the silks with different weaves.
I have a stash of fabric that I was given by my bojagi teacher when I left Korea to return to Canada, so I can understand what some of these fabrics are better than I could before.
After taking about all the traditional materials, there is a section on all the different techniques used to make the different forms of bojagi. These include stitches, seams, knot tying and embellishments.
The rest of the book contains seventeen projects that you can make using these techniques. If you don’t have access to traditional Korean fabric, that is okay. Youngmin includes projects made with all different types of fabric and encourages you to use what you have.
Some of these projects are wrapping cloths, other projects are traditional items like these pincushions, and others are just projects made with these techniques like this tote bag.
I have a few new items on my list of things to make now.
The last section of the book is a gallery Youngmin Lee’s personal creations. There are beautiful pictures of some of the things she has made and it includes the stories about each of these projects.
You can get this book on Amazon or from Youngmin Lee directly (youngminlee.com)