A Length of Gauzy Indigo Dyed Cotton: Variant on Mame Shibori
late nineteenth century
63" x 12 1/2", 160 cm x 31.5 cm
This length of hand woven cotton, gauzy and lightweight cloth shows a very subtle shibori pattern of rows of narrow lines of small blue dashes.
The pattern is a variant on mame shibori or bean shibori, which is characterized by rows of small, inky blue dots the size and shape of beans.
Mame shibori is created by hand using a kind of "primitive" folding and dyeing mechanism, the result being this length of white cotton that is studded by even rows of small bean-sized stains of indigo dye.
On this example, as is obvious from the accompanying photos, the pleating and dyeing was done is such a way as to yield very delicate, horizontal broken lines of blue: apparently this variant on mame shibori is called "flea" shibori for obvious reasons.
The hand woven cotton cloth itself is soft and the yarns are hand spun--please note one small hole shown on the detail photo here.
Just beautiful.