Japanese boro

Sashiko

A scattering of stars - Backbone of the night. Textile piece involving Japanese Boro techniques of layering fabrics and stitching together. Vintage fabrics dyed indigo.

Patched indigo cotton textile with stitching in homespun natural fibre, on a stretcher covered in indigo cotton, circa 1850-1900 Dimensions: 94 x 156 cm (can be hung portrait or landscape) Provenance: Gordon Reece collection Boro textiles were the traditional bedcovers and garments of poor rural communities of Northern Japan - the literal translation of ‘boro’ being rags. They were carefully constructed from salvaged pieces of second-hand cotton fabric bartered from sea faring merchants from…

An Antique Japanese Textile: A Heavily Patched Indigo Boro futon — Orime

Recently I was approached by a gentleman who is a well known sailor and collector of boats and anything nautical. He had the inspiration to make a collage out of his collection of old sails and wondered if I could help design a wall hanging. My inspiration was Japanese boro ( above) and I felt this method could be applied to scraps of beautifully textured parchment pieces with fabulous red stitching, layers of rust and copperised rings attached to ancient rigging. All hand sewn by a master…

I love boro stitching. I love the feel of pulling thread through cloth. I love the 'rule-less-ness' of it, and the minimalism of it. I love picking bits of cloth for their colours and textures and then stitching them together until I have a new big piece of fabric. Scrap fabrics, a needle, some thread, that's it.

In yesterday’s post, I described 3 different traditional crafts that share one common thread, the running stitch : Kantha, Boro and Sashiko. Kantha and Boro are traditional patchwork from Ind…

Boro