by Julia M Brennan and Anna Tendler Mulaney
In these hurried days leading up to the holidays, we invite you to slow down and engage in a little stitching meditation.
The elaborate overlaying patterns are applied with fine drawing or stencils, and a rice paste in a resist-dye method known as yuzen. Developed at the end of the 17th century, this technique of handcrafting elaborate cloth, sometimes imitates aristocratic brocades, is very time consuming and expensive, and today remains highly prestigious
Listen.
Pictured above is a late 19th c Meiji period Japanese uchikake, a ceremonial robe custom made for a bride. It is decorated with symbols from the golden age of the Heian Period (794–1185). Think Lady Murakasi’s epic romantic novel The Tale of Genji. The Heian Imperial Court was known for its luxurious ceremonies, romances, and exquisite arts. This highly stylish robe was worn publicly to show the sophistication and historic knowledge of the bride and her family. Even though the Heian period was long over, the public would have been able to ‘read’ this garment and be very impressed with the level of culture and arts.
Soften your gaze. Inhale patience.
Couching the gold metallic threads requires good eyesight and patience.
Exhale. Realign.
Tangled and disassociated threads are realigned, then re-stitched or couched using fine thread.
Like the courtly mannerisms of the Heian period, each repair stitch is a thoughtful meditative action to create something of beauty.
Meditation:
“…every stitch requires listening and responding to what the fabric might need…the action of looking, thinking, tending, touching, intuiting …entwines into an embodied knowledge, a soft technique, during which the ameliorative thread is sewn this way and that.”
(Manual RISD 2018, Liza Z. Morgan)
Below, note the family crest or kamon of the Tachibana clan—roundel with a blue flower on a white ground—this uchikake contains five. Treatment involves the delicate re couching around the hexagonal patterned central motif, or kikko or the tortoise of longevity. The floating rectangles are painted poems on mulberry leaves.
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- Cricket cage with a fan beside it adorned by a pair of geese, symbolizing faithfulness, returning every fall.
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- The pair of happy ducks above forecasts a happy marriage.
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- Sleeve of autumn flowers and seven grasses, with turning maples leaves, maiden flower, Chinese bell flower and pine boughs. Upper left is a mortar and pestle for mochi, and in the center is the inkstone for painting poem prayers.
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- Other side of the sleeve has plum blossoms, symbolizing bravery, and chrysanthemum symbol of longevity, in a floating world of sea waves and auspicious clouds.
