Kurume-gasuri

Kurume-gasuri - hand-tied, Awa-indigo cotton ikat from the Chikugo plain in Fukuoka; a National Important Intangible Cultural Property and one of Japan's three great kasuri.

Kurume-gasuri is a cotton ikat woven for two centuries on the Chikugo plain in Fukuoka. It began around 1800 with a Kurume girl named Inoue Den (1788-1869). Puzzled by the white flecks in a faded old cloth, she unpicked it and worked out the secret: bind sections of thread before dyeing, and the bound spots resist the indigo and stay white. Woven, those white spots scatter across the cloth like frost - this is kasuri. Threads are hand-tied, dyed in Awa natural indigo, and woven on a hand-loom with a throwing shuttle. In 1957 the hand-technique was designated a National Important Intangible Cultural Property; Kurume-gasuri stands with Iyo and Bingo as one of Japan's three great kasuri. The faint blur where each motif's edge slips is the quiet beauty of the cloth.