What is a furoshiki?

The furoshiki is a Japanese traditional square cloth that has been used for wrapping and carrying for over a thousand years. It began with the aristocrats but quickly caught on as a functional tool for the working class to bundle and transport things around.

Its name furo = bath, shiki = spread, comes from its past use in the bath houses. People would stand on their furoshiki as a mat while undressing, and left their clothes wrapped in it while they bathed.

Today, with its multitude of ways to fold & tie, it is a piece of textile where beauty meets function.

THE DESIGN

The design of this furoshiki represents the wild food plants (sansai 山菜）commonly found in Japan beginning in the spring time. Sansai cuisine is woven into the everyday culture of the people here and enjoyed by many.

Sansai recipes capture the change of seasons, right in our kitchens and dinner plates, grounding us to our landscapes. Monica (Kamado Stories) created this design with the desire to share the knowledge of wild food identification; a human skill that is old as time.

@momonga.mo

THE INDIGO

This furoshiki was dyed using natural indigo (ai 藍) using a traditional Japanese method.

It involves a 15-months long tending process, in which the indigo plant is grown from seed, the leaves are then harvested and transformed into dye (sukumo) through the alchemy of fermentation, to finally create an all natural living vat. This blue was handmade by Melanie (ainisomatte) and the microbiome that surrounds her and her indigo fields located in Okayama.

www.ainisomatte.net / @ainisomatte