An Antique Silk Komebukuro: Itajime Pieces

late nineteenth, early twentieth century
as shown: 6" x 6" x 6", 15 cm x 15 cm x 15 cm

This beautiful, small drawstring bag is hand sewn from about 20 pieces of old Japanese silk fragments, many of which are chirimen or crepe silks that have been dyed in botanical dyes.

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 marvelous bag, it is one that shows a really good range of exceptional, old silks, some of which are dyed in the itajime or kyoukechi method, a resist dyed technique that uses hand carved boards under pressure in order to imprint patterns onto the the cloth.   Note the orange and purple silks which were dyed in safflower (orange) and gromwell root (purple) dyes.