Textile Library
Learning about heritage textile craft just got cool.
Edo period
When choosing fabric was a dialogue.
Moroccan Embroidery
Moroccan women shared embroidery skills across generations, making textiles for their own homes.
Swati Embroidery
In Swat, mothers could pass family embroidery patterns to their daughters through stitched samples.
Silk Embroidery
Silk embroidery uses untwisted thread for a smooth sheen and twisted thread for more defined lines.
Madder Root
The original fiery red.
Turkey Red
Engineering the indestructible red.
Trade Textiles
Overseas buyers helped shape trade textiles as makers adapted local skills to tastes far from home.
Reversible Textiles
When the reverse is the masterpiece.
Meiji Period
In Meiji-period Japan (1868–1912), makers paired traditional textile skills with vivid new dyes.
Hikeshi Banten
Soaking hikeshi banten in water helped their quilted cotton protect Japanese firefighters from heat.
Kakishibu
Sunlight can deepen kakishibu’s brown, while the persimmon dye helps textiles resist water and wear.
Japanese Workwear
Folk craft collectors found beauty in Japan’s everyday workwear, giving its handwork a new audience.
Sakai Sarasa
Tiny “hail” dots can fill Sakai sarasa’s background, adding a second pattern around the larger motifs.
Stencil Dyeing
In stencil dyeing, what the maker cuts away can guide where color goes or where the dye is held back.
Wa-sarasa
Japanese makers drew on Indian textiles to create wa-sarasa, developing colorful patterns of their own.
Indigo Dyeing
Fresh from an indigo vat, material can look yellow-green before oxygen in the air turns the dye blue.
Boro
When repairs become the textile.
Katagami
Persimmon juice helps katagami’s finely cut paper stencils stand up to hundreds of uses in dyeing.
Katazome
Rice paste leaves a pattern behind in katazome by keeping dye out, then washing away from the cloth.
Noragi
A noragi work coat could begin with secondhand cotton shipped from Japan’s cities to its rural north.