An Itajime Dyed Cotton Length: Coral Colored
34" x 12 1/2", 86.5 cm x 31.5 cm
This irregularly shaped length of lovely, hand loomed cotton is dyed in the itajime or kyoukech imethod, a resist dye technique which uses carved boards and applied pressure to resist the cloth in order to produce patterns. Read more about this method of patterning cloth on our blog, here.
This particular fragment of cloth shows a particularly complex repeat pattern of mirror images: this mirroring effect is due to the way that the cloth is boards are positioned when clamping the cloth. In this fragment, just between the mirrored images, you can see a gap of sorts: it is here the cloth has been folded as it is interleaved between the carved boards.
The repeat pattern shown on this cloth is smaller and more intricate that what is generally shown on itajime cloth, and have a look at the detail photos that accompany this post to see this beautifully rendered, very full repeat image.
The soft pink, coral color may or may not be due to safflower or benibana dye, although presumably it is, based on the age of the cloth.
Recommended.
