MEET IT IN 30 SECONDS
絹糸の刺繍（きぬいとのししゅう）
Silk-thread embroidery uses a needle to add lines, filled areas or relief to an existing textile. The ground may already be patterned. A garment and its close-up show how woven design and added stitching work together.
Embroidery adds thread to an existing textile with a needle. The ground may already be woven or dyed with a pattern, while stitches add outlines, filled areas or relief. Silk embroidery can share a textile with dyeing and metallic-thread decoration.
Kyoto National Museum’s Meiji-period furisode I甲757 has a purple-and-white zigzag woven from kasuri yarns. Cranes, plum branches and broken hexagons are embroidered over that ground. The museum records mostly untwisted silk, with some twisted threads and gold thread.
Flat silk is used without added twist; twisted thread brings strands together by twisting. Embroiderers can prepare different thicknesses and twists for the work. Thread preparation and stitch direction both affect the resulting surface.
Silk changes its reflection as the viewing angle changes. In the crane detail, follow the white threads across the feathers and compare them with the purple-and-white woven ground. The added embroidery sits on a cloth that already has its own pattern.
In the Kyo-nui account, planning and transferring the design precede the selection of colours, stitches and needles. The ground is stretched on a frame to help prevent distortion during stitching. Thread is prepared to the required thickness and twist.
Backstitch can trace an outline, while closely placed stitches cover an area. Sashi-nui joins layers of long and short stitches and can change colours to make a gradation. Direction and overlapping coverage help explain how a motif is built.
One sample on the Kyo-nui techniques page uses fine curving lines; the other fills overlapping fan shapes. The line pattern leaves much of the ground visible, while the filled shapes cover it. They offer two different uses of the textile surface.
Chūgūji’s Tenjukoku shūchō fragments preserve Asuka-period embroidery. The Agency for Cultural Affairs relates the commission tradition to mourning Prince Shōtoku. The present mounting also contains Kamakura-period replacements made after deterioration, and its motifs are discontinuous.
Embroidery decorated Heian court clothing; Momoyama textiles combined it with dyeing, and Edo townspeople also wore embroidered garments. The Meiji furisode illustrated here provides a later, specific combination of woven ground, silk embroidery and gold thread.
Nishimura Sōzaemon XII combined yūzen dyeing and embroidery in a hanging after Ganku’s Peacock painting. He exhibited it at the Second Domestic Industrial Exhibition in 1881. Embroidery could thus form part of a pictorial hanging as well as clothing.
Kyo-nui and Edo embroidery have distinct settings of transmission and production. The national technique record describes ways of forming dots, lines, filled surfaces and relief, using untwisted silk, twisted threads and metallic threads. A regional craft name and a description of materials or stitches supply different information.
The zigzags are woven into the ground; the cranes are embroidered over it.
Flat silk has no added twist; twisted threads are twisted together and may be prepared in different thicknesses.
To help prevent distortion as the needle works through the cloth.
Fine lines leave much ground visible; dense filling covers areas of it.
No. The mounting includes Kamakura-period replacements among discontinuous fragments.
Yūzen dyeing and embroidery.
