A Large, Overdyed Cotton Furoshiki: Many Patches and Machine "Sashiko"

**reduced from $360.00**
early to mid twentieth century
73" x 64", 185.4 cm x 162.5 cm

A furoshiki is a traditional Japanese cloth that is used for wrapping, hauling and storing things.

This large, cotton example is a particularly interesting one for the subtlety of its rather unusual details.

The brownish-reddish color of this is consistent on the entire piece: all the over 20 hand stitched patches are colored with the same dye as the ground which means this entire furoshiki was dyed or over dyed well after it was used hard and repaired with many patches, some of them layered.

Add to that, two corners on this cloth show machine stitched "sashiko" stitching, in this case it is a name rendered in kanji or Chinese characters. As the proper "wrong" side is shown here in order to illustrate the patching to the surface the kanji read backwards.

The furoshiki is made of two wide pieces of heavy, supple cotton, not handwoven, that are hand stitched together. The dye used to achieve this unusual color tone is more than likely not botanical.

The subtlety and the unusual nature of the dyeing/over dyeing of this wrapping cloth make it desirable and certainly casts it as unusual.

Recommended.