A Length of Mame Shibori: Hand Spun Cotton

early twentieth century
62 1/2" x 12 1/2", 157.5 cm x 31.5 cm

This length of hand woven, hand spun, gauzy cotton 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 which, when used properly, produces small blips of dye on a white ground.

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.

The hand woven cotton cloth itself is extremely lovely and the yarns are hand spun.

Just beautiful.