Latest / It's All Japanese to Me / Ep. 6 — Sashiko: stitching cloth to make it last

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Ep. 6 — Sashiko: stitching cloth to make it last · It's All Japanese to Me

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Rikuto.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: So today's word is sashiko.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sashi comes from sasu, to pierce or to stitch.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: The digital daijisen describes sashiko as layering cotton cloth and stitching it all
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: over with small fine stitches.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It also means the cloth made in that way.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: The dictionary says that because it is strong,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: it is used for things like judo or kendo uniforms.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it is a technique and the thing it makes.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: The Heibonshire World Encyclopedia goes further into where it came from.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Originally, it says, sashiko was a way to mend warm parts of clothing.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It reinforced them, kept people warm, and made clothes last longer.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was practiced a lot in the Tohoku region in the north,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: where cotton couldn't be grown well, also in mountain areas that were hard to reach.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And in fishing villages where the work was hard.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: The encyclopedia also says its origin isn't very clear.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: What I found interesting is how different it looks from place to place.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: In the tsugaru area of Aomori, there is a style called kogin.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thick white cotton thread is stitched into dark blue hem cloth, one gap in the weave at a time.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: It makes geometric patterns.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Also in Aomori,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: nanbuhishidashi,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Turns every pattern into diamond shapes using wool thread in many colours.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And in Akita and Yamagata, there are simpler running stitches.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: One of them, Chirimenzashi, has stitches less than 2mm apart.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: They are so fine that the cloth looks like crepe.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Nipponika Encyclopedia adds something about how this changed.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: It actually started as mending damaged spots,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: but later people began to stitch the parts that were out fastest,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: like the shoulders and chest, from the first.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they did it in a decorative way.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the repair came first and the pattern grew out of it.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So today Sashiko is also popular as a hobby, both in Japan and elsewhere.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think it helps to remember that it started as everyday work originally.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, that is it for today's episode about Sashiko.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much for listening and see you next time.