I think that many readers of this blog who are Japanese textile enthusiasts love sashiko stitching and, if you have come to discover zokin, the heavily sashiko stitched pads made of recycled cottons, you probably have been smitten by them.

Each piece in the group that I am showing today is made from scraps of old, indigo dyed cotton and is stitched in hemp thread.  These beauties are all from my personal collection.The stitched pattern on the zokin pictured left, above is called “persimmon flower.”Zokin are used for housekeeping, for cleaning and for dusting: each Japanese child makes one in first grade to help tidy up their desk and classroom.  Very often each child will stitch their name onto the zokin.The hand plied, hemp thread used for stitching is quite raw, very thick and is barely pliant.   These zokin are rustic and are very scratchy.  Imagine stitching with this wiry, harsh thread?The results, though, are indeed beautiful.

Pictured hanging on the wall in the photo below  is a wonderful and large boro futon cover; on the floor is an arrangement of zokin or  sashiko stitched dust cloths made from recycled cottons which are laid out to make a kind of rug.

Because zokin are usually made from several layers of cloth, and because they are usually heavily stitched, they are durable—and they beg to be revitalized and put to use in another incarnation.   When I came across these photos, above and below, I remembered a large bed cover I hand stitched entirely from old zokin.

And here is that very bed cover, shown below.

When I first started Sri about ten years ago, I began by hand making home accessories from antique cloth: everything was hand stitched.  I soon realized, though, that I was more interested in the actual cloth than in making things from it, so I phased my business from being an artisan workshop into being a proper gallery of antique textiles.  I’m much happier now that I’ve made this transition.

Still, this bed cover remains one of the favorite things I made: a wonderful client bought it and is living with it, which is great to know.  It’s incredibly durable, and I am sure it keeps my client very warm up there in New England.

Of course this bed cover was made during the days when zokin were more available than they are now so I had many to choose from to stitch this piece.  As you can imagine, textiles of beauty and age are harder and harder to come by as the time goes on.

Today’s post features a large, very layered and very eccentrically sashiko stitched, boro furoshiki, or wrapping cloth which is  flanked by a collection of densely stitched zokin or dustrags made from  re-used, re-purposed cloth.

The furoshiki measures 68″ x 60″/ 173 cm x 152.5 cm and it is an elegant mess of scraps of cotton cloth that are layered in areas and arranged with no regard for symmetry: the entire wrapping cloth is pierced by a heavy network of sashiko stitching which travels strange paths in odd directions, often pooling up in tight, eddies of thread.

Below the furoshiki you’ll see a stack of vintage, hemp cloth zabuton and a large, 19th century silk drawstring bag.

Which is front and which is back?  Each side is a similarly interesting exploration of re-using cloth scraps and employing stitching as a means to strengthen and reinforce re-purposed materials.  Even though this furoshiki contains scraps of cloth from the late 19th century, most of the cloth is from the 20th, and my guess is that this was made in the 1930s or 40s.

The images of two zokin, below, show a tough little work horse of a cloth: each is a concentrated pad made of layers of recycled coton which has been thoroughly and completely stitched.

As with the furoshiki shown here, I’ll be offering the zokin for sale on my website in the next week or so.