This Japanese boro (futon cover) was made in the 19th century by recycling remnants of indigo dyed cotton and joining them together. It’s so well-made that it’s still in perfect condition. There is really no printed or woven substitute for this kind of work, which at this point in history, when handmade textile methods are rapidly vanishing, is really hard not to fetishize. People don’t seem to have time for mending anymore. On average North Americans throw away  a staggering 68 pounds of textiles a year each, which in Canada alone, with a population of approx 30 million people, amounts to 2,040,000,000 pounds. Yes, that’s 2 billion 40 million pounds of discarded textiles – in one year. And each year, we buy another 68 pounds. Textiles are some of the most toxic products to produce, and most of them travel great, wasteful distances to reach us. Some discarded textiles do get recycled – usually overseas in Asia, India and sometimes Africa, which means they take yet another trip. We might as well start mending again. Look how beautiful it is. Photos of this many-times-mended boro via 1st Dibs. Close-up detail:

The photos of Japanese mending and patches, below, are from Amy Sylvester Katoh’s book Japanese Country Living. She comments that “[t]he miraculous thing is that so many such pieces are extant today, carefully stored away for decades by the families that made and used them.” More photos and pages from the book can be found in the Japan Flickr set here. Immediately below: patched futon on beds and ragweave rug in a restored Japanese farmhouse; patched farmer’s jacket.

Below is the method of mending stitchery known as sashiko. It’s a form of mending which, by traveling across the warp or weft or often both, reinforces the textile and mimics weaving.

The photo above shows the central living area of a rural farmhouse on the border of Tochigi and Ibaraki prefectures. The house was restored by Kenji Tsuchisawa who bought it as a rundown heap when he was only 20, after seeing a photograph of a traditional Japanese farmhouse on a Tokyo magazine cover. He bought the house before realizing it was situated just one village away from the house in the magazine. Many Japanese traditional farmhouses have now been restored and modernized, but the layout of these houses is so clever in terms of use of space and comfort that when they are updated, the original layout is often retained. It’s a house model being studied by North American and European architects aiming to produce smaller but more functional houses. Traditional Japanese houses are not large, but they seem larger than they are thanks to their well-thought-out layout, and their serene, warm version of minimalism makes them comfortable and functional. The use of natural materials and repeated colours makes the rooms feel balanced, and so does the fact that most objects have a real function. Decorative elements exist, but not to excess. When they are modernized, the main alteration is usually the replacement of the original exterior doors and windows, and trading the sliding shoji screen doors and windows for more sturdily framed glass doors, windows and skylights to let in more light and keep out the weather.

Both photos above show the traditional indoor fire pit known as an irori, which sometimes sits on a raised seating platform, though in the photo above the irori has been traded for a more efficient (and safer) wood stove. The beautiful half-frosting on the glass screen doors in the photo above provides some privacy from the fairly public courtyard for people seated inside. Photos are from a book I think is really worth buying: Japan Country Living: Spirit, Tradition, Style, by Amy Sylvester Katoh, photographs by Shin Kimura, Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, Japan, 1993. Kimura’s work has also appeared in Met Home and Paris Vogue.

Above is a checkerboard textile of indigo-dyed hemp by Hiroyuki Shindo, on the verandah of his thatched house. It provides privacy (it appears opaque from outside, see here) and yet admits light and the view. Below, a functional modern kitchen produced by making only minor changes to the original.

The bottom photo shows a functioning scarecrows made of indigo-dyed hemp. The original book caption reads “The bold design of this piece of shibori-dyed hemp by Seizo Ishikawa, a farmer, seems at home working as a scarecrow by a newly harvested rice field.” The birds in Japan must have been accustomed to seeing farmers in real Japanese indigo yukatas, waving their arms. In the top photo, however, the proximity to the house suggests mainly the traditional Japanese method of drying kimono, yukata and other garments, but it probably conveniently doubled as a scarecrow. The target design is interesting, perhaps suggesting part of an eye? From the excellent book Japan Country Living: Spirit, Tradition, Style by Amy Sylvester Katoh, photographs by Shin Kimura, Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, Japan, 1993. Kimura’s work has also appeared in Met Home and Paris Vogue. Also see their excellent book Japan: The Art of Living.

This amazing textile is actually the back of a quilt by Lauren Venell, but it could just as easily be the front. Venell’s fabric is dark blue denim, with light grey quilting thread to show the quilting design in contrast, and she pieced and quilted the whole thing by hand on the sewing machine. As you can see it’s a geometric abstract representation of mountains, lake and shore, with beautiful quasi-Japanese reflections, and we’ve been staring at it in a sort of trance. The quilt is one of the submissions to a sewing challenge by Craft Magazine. The theme is “Sewing with Nature” and it can be interpreted broadly. If you’re interested in entering, you can upload a photo of your submission to Craft Mag’s contest Flickr pool. We really like Craft Mag – or craftzine.com as it’s known in its online version – for its excellent tutorials and its hipness.