A Patched and Repaired Komebukuro: Drawstring Bag

early twentieth century
11" x 10" x 10", 28 cm x 25.5 cm x 25.5 cm

This lovely and good-sized rustic drawstring bag is hand sewn from 16 pieces of old Japanese cottons. Look carefully at the accompanying detail photos and you can see that this bag shows nice repairs and it has one, long split to the cloth, also shown. The bag is lined in cotton.

It shows an assortment of woven stripes, kasuri or ikat, katazome and plaid cloth--and the bottom panel is a wonderful fragment of heavily sashiko stitched, indigo dyed cotton: quite nice.

The thickly twined cotton drawstring seems original to the bag and one or two of the cotton loops through which the drawstring is threaded are missing. 

This kind of piece-constructed, drawstring bag is often referred to as a komebukuro.  

Komebukuro are bags that were used to bring token offerings of uncooked rice or beans to a temple or shrine festival, the piecing and patching often being thought-out and planned, for festive effect.  

 A charming bag with good age, it is one that shows a good range of hand loomed cottons with a bit of repair--it is an object that beautifully recalls the spirit of old Japan.