Meet the subject
絣
Kasuri is cloth woven from yarn dyed in planned segments. Its design can be carried by the warp, the weft, or their coordination. Regional Japanese traditions use different materials and processes; Kurume’s hand-tied indigo work offers one concrete example of how the technique operates.
Patterned colour intervals are prepared before weaving.
Warp, weft and double kasuri identify which yarn system carries those intervals.
Hand-tying, indigo and handweaving are specific requirements within the protected Kurume technique described here.
Kasuri uses yarn dyed in planned segments to make a woven design. Dyeing establishes the colour intervals; weaving brings them into relation across the cloth. Printing on finished cloth and tie-dyeing a complete piece of cloth operate at a different stage.
Warp threads run lengthwise through the cloth; weft crosses them. Warp kasuri uses patterned yarn in the warp, weft kasuri in the weft, and double kasuri in both. With two patterned systems, the coloured intervals must be coordinated as weaving proceeds.
Principle schematic: vertical warp and horizontal weft. Blue-and-white segments are prepared before weaving; this is not a magnified weave of a particular cloth.
The ICU museum explains softened outlines through dye spreading and contraction during weaving. Such edges coexist with deliberate design: the lengths and positions of coloured segments, and their alignment in the loom, shape the result. Weft kasuri can also produce pictorial designs, including fans.
The preservation society describes its designated technique as handwoven, plain-weave cotton cloth. Both warp and weft are tied by hand for resist dyeing in indigo, producing blue-and-white yarn segments. Those are conditions of this specific protected craft; kasuri more broadly includes other combinations of fibre, colour and method.
In the Kurume hand-tying example, the design determines yarn counts and is transferred to sample yarn. Following that sample, a maker tightly binds the sections to remain undyed with plant-fibre ties, then dyes the yarn in indigo. Removing the bindings reveals the planned intervals. These are selected stages within a longer process.
The society’s chart separates warp and weft preparation. After dyeing, untying and starching, the warp undergoes pattern alignment and loom preparation; the weft is divided and wound for the shuttle. Handweaving brings the two systems together, followed by finishing and inspection.
Shared start: plan the design
Prepare yarn → tie, dye, untie, starch → align design and set up loom
Prepare patterned yarn → tie, dye, untie, starch → divide and wind bobbins
Hand-weave → finish → inspect
Toyota Municipal Museum of Folkcraft cites the Hōryūji-associated Taishi kandō among early imported textiles, while noting uncertainty about where it was woven. Such surviving cloth documents early encounters with kasuri. The development of later regional production has a separate history.
Tokyo National Museum; N-46_5_1, image C0058737, photographed 9 May 2000.
The museum traces regional transmission through medieval exchange between Southeast Asia and Ryukyu, followed by movement through Satsuma in the early modern period. Local fibres, dyes and uses then contributed to different textile traditions. No single Japanese production centre originated every form of kasuri.
Indigo-dyed cotton kasuri became common for work clothing and bedding in late Edo and Meiji Japan, according to the ICU museum. Kurume, Iyo, Hirose and Yumigahama were production areas. Kurume’s society connects its local origin story with Inoue Den in 1799, followed by new patterning methods, spun yarn and factory production.
Ehime Prefectural Museum of History and Culture; Iyo-kasuri material.
Kurume’s chronology records wartime yarn allocation, a return to free production, designation in 1957, a preservation foundation in 1960 and trainee activity from 1989. Training and inspection support transmission of the designated hand technique.
Its colour intervals are planned during yarn dyeing; weaving combines them into the cloth’s design.
They place the patterned yarn in different directions. Double kasuri uses it in both systems.
Selected sections are tightly bound before indigo dyeing, protecting them from the dye; the bindings are removed afterward.
Those conditions belong to the designated Kurume technique discussed here. Kasuri as a wider category includes other fibres, colours and methods.
Hand-tying yarn in Kurume kasuri production; photograph date unstated.
No open licence established.
Yarn-dyeing scenes in the Kurume process guide.
No open licence established.
Blue-and-white yarn after untying: color segments already exist before weaving.
No open licence established.
A hand-weaving example: yarn forms a patterned cloth on the loom.
No open licence established.
Kurume preservation society: original process chart
Preservation-society image; copyright retained. Local study preview only.