Tenugui are known for their fanciful designs, but this one, with is stencil resist design of insects, snails and frogs is remarkable.The cotton of this tenugui is hand loomed; the pale blue color–dyed from botanical indigo–is called asagi.In Japan, the insects depicted on this hand towel are very much associated with late summer.  Similarly, around the world, butterflies and dragonflies appear at summer’s end.I love the delicacy of the depiction of these insects……and the frog and slug.

This is a wildly charming tenugui–and it seems that it was never used.  The condition is crisp and perfect.

This tenugui measures 12 3/4″ x 37″ or 32.5 cm x 94 cm.

The weaving of the body of the coat is tight and regular; a sakiori garment woven from indigo dyed weft is desirable. The sashiko stitching on the neck reinforcement is just wonderful: the tight stitching gives added strength that area of the coat, and zigzag pattern is the traditional yabane or arrow feather motif.The interlocking circle motif, again, beautifully stitched on the sleeves, is a traditional Japanese motif which is borrowed from the Chinese.  In Japan it is called shippo tsunagi and it is a representation of the “seven Buddhist jewels” mentioned in Buddhist sutras: agate, amber, coral, gold, lapis lazuli, pearl and silver.I find this coat to be phenomenally handsome.  It’s very lightly used and most likely it dates to the mid-twentieth century.  Traditional work coats were still being hand woven and hand sewn well into the twentieth century in rural Japan.

Aside from the wonderful idea of separating two designs and depicting each in staggered blocks, seeing these designs overlayed on the base cloth of hand woven, wide-striped, indigo dyed cotton is fantastic.  This layered effect adds to the overall design complexity, as well as to our visual enjoyment.I’d say this sashiko stitched textile dates to the second quarter of the 20th century or so.It measures 52″ x 48″ or 132 cm x 122 cm.

If you notice some light colored edges along some of the horizontal pieces, this is something interesting: these pieces were taken from the end of a bolt of kimono cotton; the entirety of this futon cover was pieced from fairly lightweight,  recycled kimono cottons.This futon cover is completely hand-stitched and was probably made around the first quarter of the 20th century.I think this embodies a masculine kind of beauty and is just stunning overall.

The cloth which sits under this futon cover is shown on my website, here.

The cotton used is a kind of twill structure cotton which has been clamp resist dyed.   Rare to find are garments, such as jackets, made of this indigo dyed cloth: this is the first time I’ve seen so much of this type of cotton recycled and used in this fashion.Kyokechi or itajime is a laborious and ingenious dyeing process using hand carved wood boards: cloth is clamped under great pressure between the carved boards, so the parts of cloth that are highly pressurized resist dye.  To achieve the designs shown on the boro piece shown here, an artisan hand carved the surface of a wood block with a particular design.  Then another block, in mirror image to the original had to be carved and they would be set face-to-face.Cloth would be slipped between the two carved blocks, the raised areas of the carving would clamp down on the cloth and would resist dye: a length of cloth would be fed through a  high stack of many identically carved blocks, the entire tower of blocks would be clamped, and this big,  bundle of cloth under pressure from layers of carved blocks would be lowered into a dye vat.  The patterns you see on the cloth on the post here are the result of the cloth being under so much pressure that the dye did not penetrate those clamped portions of cloth.  Of course, before the cloth was clamp dyed, it was first dyed a pale blue, which is the base color of the cloth.The dark, horizontal bands seen on the cloth in the photos posted here represents the area of cloth between two boards which was not under pressure and was fully exposed to the indigo dye bath.This mat is tattered in places, but it is still so amazing in that it is fully made of itajime cloth: even on old, boro futon covers, it’s rare to find even a scrap of this kind of cloth used as a patch: this kind of cotton was not produced in great quantity, so examples of it are not readily available.The cotton of this piece dates to the mid 19th century or so.

This piece measures 42″ x 27″ or 106.5 cm x 68.5 cm

This is a  marvelous, 19th century cotton furoshiki: it is dyed in the tsutsugaki method whereby rice paste is applied freehand directly to cloth; where there is rice paste, dye will be resisted.  The furoshiki was first dyed in indigo then it was overdyed using a yellow dyestuff, yielding a rich, mossy green color.  Said butterfly is at the center of the design; it is surrounded by a traditional “snowflake” form and the remaining ground around the central design is decorated by free-form, very animated pairs of pine needles.The cotton yarn is hand spun and the cloth is hand woven.  This piece is rich in ito aji or “thread taste,” which is something one should always look for when acquiring old, Japanese folk cotton.  There is nothing more beautiful than wonderfully hand spun cotton cloth.The depiction of pine needles is wonderfully spirited.  The Japanese often associate pine needles with conjugal fidelity since the pine is a symbol of long life and pine needles fall in pairs.The furoshiki measures 55″ x 52″ or 140 cm x 132 cm.  It’s fantastic.

However, for me, what makes this coat special is the base cloth, an indigo dyed cotton whose woven pattern is referred to in Japan as sankuzushi.In the photo above, and the two below, I’ve focused in on some of the stitched details, since they are so marvelous.  In the last photo, at the bottom of this post, I’ve zeroed in on the sankuzushi cloth, so you can have a better look at it.
In the photo below you will see the woven pattern that is one of my favorites: sometimes in Japan sankuzushi is called ajiro or “split bamboo mat.”   In any case, this kind of pattern was popular in 19th century Japan.  Its popularity probably had to do with its intricacy and its small pattern–keep in mind that throughout Japan’s Edo Period (1603-1868) sumptuary laws were levied on the general population, controlling, among other things, the kind of cloth one could wear.  Most Japanese were required to wear subtle clothing in somber colors. Another element that may have made this cloth attractive was its exotic origins.  My understanding is that this kind of cloth was first woven as export cloth in India and was subsequently copied in China.  Ultimately, the Japanese starting weaving their own version of this woven-looking cloth although it is still possible to find Indian and Chinese examples in Japan.