Shibori/Mudcloth Indigo Pillow

$265

Beautiful Indigo Hand Dyed Pillow. Each One is a Unique work of art. We have more sizes and designs available. Please call the Studio to see what we have.

Tie-dyeing has evolved in many cultures around the world, and can be seen on fabrics made thousands of years ago in Latin America, Africa, India, China and around Asia. It entered Japan at least 1300 years ago from China, along with the Chinese style of dress, and was interpreted in a particularly Japanese fashion. The basic technique of Arimatsu Shibori is to draw a design on a piece of fabric (usually silk or cotton), then to tie very tight knots with thread around points of the fabric. The fabric is then dyed; since the dye does not penetrate the knots, when they are untied there is a pattern of dyed and undyed areas. This can be repeated many times to produce patterns of various colours.

Shibori was originally an art of the poor. In feudal Japan, many people could not afford to buy expensive fabrics like cotton or silk, so clothes were often made of cheap hemp fabrics. People could not afford to replace clothes regularly either, so they would repair and redye them, and the art of Shibori evolved as a means of making old clothes look new. Under the Tokugawa peace, many different arts flourished, and many different techniques and local forms of Shibori emerged. Shibori developed along two separate paths: as the method of decorating the silk used for producing kimonos for the aristocracy of Japan (largely carried out in Kyoto), and as a folk art differing from region to region.