Since I specialize in indigo dyed cotton boro textiles, today I thought I would show a variation on this theme by posting images of a silk and cotton piece-constructed han juban, a half under-kimono.

In old Japan, many han juban were made by piecing together scraps of cloth and no doubt you’ve seen examples on this blog.  In this case, both indigo dyed cotton and silk fragments were pieced together using a very strident and noticeable stitching, much of it done using hemp thread.

On the above photo you can see how direct the stitching on this han juban is.

And above you will see a detail of the collar area: the bottom part of the collar is indigo dyed cotton and the top is of nice, 19th century katazome silk.

And the inside is very interesting, as well, with more examples of piece construction.

The back, too, has interesting details.

I think this piece probably dates to the Meiji era (1868-1912) and it measures  30″,76 cm from shoulder to hem x 48″, 122 cm from sleeve tip to sleeve tip.