Tsutsugaki Textile
Tsutsugaki is a style of textile made from cotton cloth and resist dyed with indigo. Tsutsugaki translates to "tube drawing," as the rice paste is drawn on with a sort of piping bag to create the light spaces left behind after the fabric is dyed with indigo. Additional colors, like the red, are sometimes added after the resist-dye process has been finished.
- Object: Tsutsugaki Textile
- Artist: unknown
- Circa: unknown
- Dimensions: 35" x 38"
- Culture Area: Japan
- Cultural Group: -
- Cultural Context: Tsutsugaki (??) is a Japanese technique of resist dyeing that involves drawing rice-paste designs on cloth, dyeing the cloth, and then washing off the paste. The rice paste is typically made from sweet rice, which has a high starch content and is therefore rather sticky. The paste is applied through a tube (the tsutsu) similar to the tubes which are used by bakers to decorate cakes. A related process is to apply the paste through a stencil; that is called katazome. The cloth is typically cotton, and the dye is typically indigo, so the design is usually white on blue. -craftatlas
- Donor: Cathy Prince
- Catalog #: 2025.12.1