A Large, Scrappy Boro Futon Cover: Double Sided with 19th Century Tenugui Fragments

mid twentieth century
66" x 46", 167.5 cm x 117 cm

This is a good sized and very attractive, messy and wonderful boro futon cover.  It is a riot of patches, surface abrasion, some lightly attached patches, a few tears and some small holes--and this unintentional "artwork" is equally wonderful when seen from either side.

There is something attractive and up-front about this piece: the colors, the variety of patches and the general feeling of immediacy of it are all alluring.

The base cloth is a semi-machine woven striped kasuri.  On to this kasuri cloth are place a wild variety of patches, from large-scale, mid 20th century, indigo dyed cotton, to fragments of rustic shibori, to wide striped cotton to old, faded pieces of indigo dyed cotton.

Special mention is to be paid to two fairly prominent fragments, one seen on front, one seen on back.  There are pale blue cotton fragments, each with a resist dyed image, that are hand woven from hand spun cotton and are taken from a 19th century tenugui, a kind of hand cloth that has become very collectible.  The inclusion of this very old cloth amid cottons that were woven in the early to mid 20th century is a curious thing, but it also tells the story of boro: boro can be a mash-up of inter-generational cloth, a combination of whatever scraps are available to be used, from those recently woven to those that have been stored for decades.

Please pore over the attached photos to enjoy the raw beauty of this old futon cover.

Wonderful.