It’s been too long since I’ve last posted here, the reason being that I returned from Japan with a lot of antique Japanese folk textiles I found on my buying trip, and getting them all ready to show is time consuming.

I’ll be rolling out these new items on the webshop, with a good line-up to be shown this coming Wednesday, May 1 at 11 AM NY time.

Shown here is a wonderfully patched, large boro futon cover I just found on my trip.  The combination of the geometric katazome cloth overlaid by the random–and many–patches is gorgeous.  I was really happy when I found this one.

The indigo dyed cotton background shows a repeat pattern of hexagons or kikko, the traditional tortoiseshell pattern.   This design conveys a wish for long life.

The hand loomed cotton is gauzy, very soft and drapey.  The color is a beautifully faded indigo, softened from decades of wear.

The size is nice.  It’s 60″ x 48″ or 152.5 cm x 122 cm and it probably dates to the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Many of you are familiar with sekka itajime shibori, or clamp resist dyed shibori which ends up looking something like a flower, in this case, sekka or a snowflower.  And as this shibori technique was commonly used for diapers, many of you are used to seeing this type of shibori done small, like this.As sekka shibori is a fairly straightforward and relatively easy-to-do shibori technique, it was used a great deal in old Japan, especially in the 20th century.  Here we see it covering a marvelously large area as 6 standard-sized loom widths are machine stitched together to create a futon cover (which is now opened, as shown here).  But sekka shibori was also used for undergarments and yukata.In addition to the snowflower motif, you’ll also see an all-over configuration of hexagons.  This could be read as kikko or tortoiseshell, and, as you can imagine, it is a traditional motif that conveys wishes for a long life.This is a huge piece.  It measures 89″ x 72″ or 226 cm x 183 cm and it’s in quite good condition.  Every so often there’s a match head-sized hole, but the cotton is bright white and the indigo is a rich sapphire blue.  It was probably made in the 1950s or 60s.