Boro

I've just put this piece of boro on the website. It's a large, very old  futon cover  that's been opened out lengthwise.   The main panel is a piece of tsutsugaki.  Tsutsugaki  is created by drawing a rice-paste resist design on to the fabric with a tsutsu (a cone a bit like an icing bag).  It's then dyed in indigo and sometimes  other colours are added.   The back of the fabric has been extensively patched with  plain, striped and checked indigo - which of course is the bit that we  boro fans love! It dates from late 19th - early 20th century.  The tsutsugaki panel would originally  have been an expensive piece, not something peasant farmers or workers could have bought,  so there will have been an interesting story as to how to came to be in such a humble state.

potd - Remnant Bundles

I've been having fun making up bundles of old remnants - mostly  early-mid 20th century cotton and  a few bits of  sakabukuro and silk worm netting.

potd - Sashiko Zokin

I've just put out a  big bundle of hand-stitched zokin cleaning cloths made from old cotton remnants, probably from the middle of the last century but unused.   A bit boro.

potd - Old Vest Lining

When I was going through some old plain indigo I came across this patched vest lining. Just a little bit boro and with lots of potential.

potd - Patches

I'm ironing up pieces of old indigo cotton (sorry, the colour is never right in the photos). The patched pieces are my favourites...

potd - Printed Shibori Boro

This is a post-war patched and stitched futon cover panel  in the make-do boro tradition. At a distance it looks like shibori dyeing but is actually printed.  This is for sale on my website or in the shop.

potd - Antique Cotton Bundles

I'm just making some more antique cotton bundles - perfect for boro projects, These are available in the shop and online.

potd - Katazome Boro

Antique patched and stitched boro ('rags') futon cover panel. The base fabric is very old katazome ('stencil-dye') cotton which is stencilled with a rice-paste  resist before dyeing in indigo. It probably dates from late 19th or very early 20th century but some of the patches don't look as old as the others - so it may have been used and repaired for many years.  The katazome was made as a futon cover fabric but is a more expensive fabric than the plain indigos, checks and stripes that you usually see on patched boro pieces like this,  which makes me wonder if this  belonged to a family that may  have seen better days. Most of the katazome futon cover fabrics we get come in much better,  un-patched condition.  The first  patchy photo shows the reverse side of the panel.This piece is available in the shop and on my website.

potd - Antique Cotton Bundles

I made up more of these  bundles of antique indigo cotton remnants today.  They're small  pieces from old bedding and work clothes and come in varying conditions (some patched, stitched, holey or faded). The pieces all date from late 19th - mid 20th century (up until about the end of the war).  I sell these online as well  and they're  popular with patchworkers who are interested in traditional Japanese stitching and boro textiles.

Boro

I've just added some more well- patched and stitched boro textiles to my website  here.  I hope to add some more in the next few days.

The first one is square mat  in near perfect condition dating from early 20th century.  It's made up of pieces of kasuri, stripes and printed cotton  with  a maroon check on the reverse.

The next one is another slightly older mat. It's quite heavily layered and has some unrepaired damage. i love the red in the kasuri down the side - just gives a lift and some added warmth:

The last one for now is a lovely soft, faded,  late 19th century katazome (stencil dyed) futon cover panel with boro patches on the back.

potd - 'Boro' Futon Cover

Well patched and stitched early 20th century 'boro' futon cover...

potd - Boro

A well worn and patched and stitched boro mat or kotatsu cover from the early - mid 20th century. I love the browns and tans in this.

POTD - Boro

Detail of a boro  (rags) futon cover panel.   I've always loved these old  patched futon covers and garments  which are left over from a time when many people lived in poverty and  every scrap of fabric was valued and re-used.  When  I first started out 'boro' was a dirty word, now even  'boro fashion' is a thing, and prices for old original pieces have gone up accordingly.  The trick is to watch out for non-authentic pieces and that will become harder as prices go up even more. 

(Four years ago I wrote this post about boro. In that time attitudes in the Japanese textile market have changed and the term 'boro' seems to be widely accepted now. )

In Store... Boro and Obi

I'll be putting out more boro soon. Here are a couple of pieces that are in the shop at the moment and also online  here .   This is an old well patched futon cover panel..

I'm not sure if this piece has been used a  floor mat or possibly a kotatsu cover but it has lots of character...

I've been putting out some obi and hope to put out more soon. These aren't in my online shop but you're welcome to email me if you're interested in any of them...

 

  

  

 

  

In store - some recent additions

I've had trouble keeping up with the blog  over the summer but now the kids are back at school and Takashi's gone back to Japan for a while I should be able to post more regularly.  Today I'm  posting some recent additions to the shop...

First are two panels of old Iyo-gasuri which is kasuri  from Matsuyama city, very near to where we have our Japanese home in Ehime prefecture on Shikoku.  Iyo is the old name for Ehime. I'm sure I'll write more about kasuri in the future. Basically it  is Japanese ikat where the warp and/or weft threads are tie-dyed before weaving. Where undyed sections of warp and weft thread meets the pattern will be white. The lighter blue/grey colour is created where only the weft threads are undyed. These pieces are e-gasuri or 'picture kasuri'. The one on the left is a koi carp and on the right is a Daruma with a butterfly, toy drum and pine tree.  These panels would orginally have been parts of futon covers and probably date from the early 20th century.

Next are some very simple but interesting old wooden print blocks. I can't tell you much about them I'm afraid, even whether they were used on fabric or some sort of paper (possibly fusuma screen doors?) but they have a nice humble character and  we have a basket of them.

This is part of a wonderful  old ranru or boro  patched futon cover. I couldn't fit the whole thing in the picture. Please have a look at my earlier post on boro for more information.

And finally, I've put out quite a lot more obi of various ages, styles, sizes, fibres, textures and condition.



'Boro'

When I first started collecting textiles Takashi was surprised that it was the ragged, patched and worn pieces that appealed to me most.  But of course I'm not alone and in the years since then it's been interesting to see the price of these so-called 'boro' pieces (usually old futon covers) soar.  'Boro' has become a fairly common term in the textile world but in Japanese it literally means 'rags' and traditionally has very negative connotations . Some people in the textile market in Japan still prefer not to use it as it implies the piece is rubbish and dirty and the term could be seen as an insult to the person who brought it along. More typically dealers would call these pieces 'ranru' a less negative word which can also be associated with patched Buddhist textiles. Takashi thinks it's probably in the last five or six years that 'boro' has become a more acceptable term, no doubt because of the growing popularity of these textiles with international dealers. There's still a lot I want to learn about the connotations of  these and other words used to describe this kind of textile and also how 'boro' came to be the standard term in English.

Here are some 'boro' pieces from my collection. The first is a  futon cover. It was too big to fit the whole thing in one photo so these are details:

This futon cover (futonji) is typical of boro pieces that have been patched and re-patched over a number of years with whatever remnants were available. Most of the pieces we see today probably date from the late 19th - mid 20th century. Throughout this period  there were many in Japan still living in  utter poverty. People might have only one piece of clothing that they wore both day and night and there were plenty who didn't  even have the relative luxury of a futon to patch. People bought what clothing they could second-hand  and every scrap of fabric was valued and re-used  to repair clothing and bedding like this or as cleaning cloths and nappies. The appeal of these pieces isn't only aesthetic (and their random stitching  and patching has a wonderful rustic charm) but in the way they are imbued with the history of ordinary people. 

The next piece is an old kimono  (you can click on the photos for a closer look)...

                                                                             

And finally a very old pair of western style men's trousers patched with indigo cottons.  A more familiar and less charming reminder that boro was about poverty, necessity and making do.