Antique Katazome Futon Cloth - Dark

This is a piece of vintage fabric cut from a futon cover. We believe this textile was made by hand.

It is typical of Japanese textiles that were created for decorative purposes like home funishings. Katazome, which is is a traditional Japanese resist dye technique where a stencil is used to apply a rice flour and water paste before dyeing. Once the paste is dry, the cloth was immersed in an indigo pot several times to achieve this saturated color. The rice paste resist is then washed away, and the peachy-pink colors -- persimmon tannin dye called kakishibu -- are applied. The cotton was also likely woven by hand.

Antique indigo-dyed textiles such as this, are highly regarded, never thrown away, always reused and is even held in collections within Japan and across the world.

They are perfect for Japanese boro-inspired arts such as patchwork, visible mending, and the like. The term boro translates as scrap / rag. Therefore, this category of Japanese textile can simply be referred to as boro.

Each piece is approximately 13" x 7" and has its own character including: fading, creases and threads from hems, tiny holes from previous seams, and similar signs of wear.

All pieces are used, but clean and may have fuzzy futon batting adhered to the back side.

Made in Japan