Category Archives: Boro

Japanese bag

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This simple and beautiful bag was the inspiration for the two-quilt-messenger bag that I made last week (below).

It is constructed from three pieces – the front, the back, and a single side piece.  Each component has a blue face with a red backing.

The side panel does not come all the way up to the uppermost edges, in order to leave room for a casing, which houses the blue cord pull-ties.  The casing is just a gap between the red lining and the blue front, with two lines of stitching to define.
Because you seam the finished components wrong sides together, there is no need to leave an opening in the final construction phase in order to reverse, the way many bag patterns require.  By using the red contrasting fabric for the inside of each of the three pieces, and making no attempt to hide any seams, a beautiful line of color is created – very much like piping.

The ties are long.  Each of the two loops exit on opposite sides, so that when you pull the ties, the loop that is inside the casing opposite, tugs closed.  It’s a simple and elegant design, through and through.

I thought of this bag as I was pulling the next two quilts out of a drawer during my three weeks of purse sewing.
About 14 inches square, these two panels were a good size for a messenger bag, or what I’m calling a messenger bag.  A true messenger bag would have a fold-over flap.
I realized that once I removed the dowel sleeves, I had two of the three pieces of the model Japanese bag.  I constructed a blue strap with finished edges that was long enough to run around three sides of the bag and then up and over the shoulder (14 inches x 3 plus about 35 inches).  I included enough length to make a loop on one end that the other end would tie into, so as to make the strap adjustable.

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I also added a good-sized lined pocket on the wrong side of one of the quilts.
The project made me happy for a couple of reasons.  One, it put to good use some quilts I was not crazy about as wall hangings (I love them as purse panels, though!!).  I did six of these, so I can make two more bags.  I sold this one on Sunday.  I think I will select a handle/side & bottom fabric that is much tougher than the one above, so that the bag could carry the weight of a lap top – it’s the perfect size.  Two, I was very proud of myself for figuring out how to borrow some of the construction methods of a long-admired bag.*

P.S. While sewing mine together, I realized that the curved edges were critical to the design of the indigo bag.  I had to stop my side panel seams just short of each corner, leaving four holes that I then hand sewed.  I didn’t really want to cut the 14″ x 14″ quilted panel – doing so would have wrecked the bound edge and posed a different construction problem.

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*  I bought this bag from a couple who made a wide variety of useful objects out of beautiful Japanese indigo cloth many years ago at a huge holiday craft fair held at Boston’s Seaport World Trade Center.  I have no name to share with you, I’m afraid!!

Wrapped in mother-love

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This LL Bean sweater was my mother’s.  I am using it as my first exercise in Jude Hill‘s Contemporary Boro 2 class.  As a starting point, it has to fit better.  I had already cut the too-long sleeves to wrist-length awhile back.  They’ll need binding.   The shoulders droop unattractively and I want to fix that.  Today I cut the ugly buttons off and unpicked the threads holding in the tags, then created a muslin tag (rubber stamped with coffee pot) and an inner pocket featuring a lion, to reference my very Leonine mother.

I want to add a lower section that will bring the garment below the hip, and also add some weight to it.

Right now, I plan to bring that cocoa-colored Indian trim fabric right down the front, and for the wrists as well.  Not sure what I’ll use for the lower peplum.  Not the beautifully-embroidered indigo shown here, but something else.

And closure is up in the air now, too.

This was the sash I constructed back when I was thinking about running with this idea:

I plan to add thin red ties, so that the ‘waistlit’ as it has been dubbed by deanna, will wrap twice and tie in front, but with narrower ties.

four sides

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One of the two Boro Houses is finished.
It is a little grey and rainy out there, today.
If I were to keep this Hut, I would ‘plant’ it so that a staghorn fern curled up and out of it – like I did with the very first hut.


This piece was purchased by an art teacher in Cerritos, California, named Debra Sposa.  You can find pictures of her high school and junior high school student art work (amazing, art work!), here.

Waffle weave – Beginning

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Disappointed to have missed the sign up for Jude Hill’s Contemporary Boro class, I have decided to embark on my own.  Like any true fabric collector, I have been setting aside garments for ages — pieces that hold some sort of potential for reworking.  Sometimes, it’s the fabric I love, sometimes, the cut.  But, for whatever reason, the shirts/pants/jackets do not work as wearable items.

Number One goal – to have fun.
Number Two goal – to convert giveaways into comfortable, wearable garments (or special dressy ones, who knows?).
Number Three goal – learn stuff.
Number Four goal – to use what I find, am given, have on hand.  Minimal expenditures.
Number Five goal – share here.
Number Six goal – work up to dyeing cloth/garments this summer.

Inspiration?
Of course, Jude — check this out, and this, and this.
Of course, India Flint – check this out.  There are better garment pictures in her first book.

Following directions and working in three dimensions are challenging for me, so in tandem with deconstruction and messing around, I plan to make some clothes – start to finish – with a pattern.

For a tiny bit of background on Boro, there is a Japanese textile overview here  – Kimonoboy.  A collector shares some great pictures, here.  And, of course – if you google “boro textiles” in the images mode, you will be flooded with beauty!

And, what a discovery this morning – THIS site – ‘Denham the Jeanmaker’, whose tagline is “Worship Tradition, Destroy Convention”.  Stylish, sales-oriented, and full of cool ideas.

In any case, my first project, above, aims to be a little more pedestrian and less time-consuming than many of my inspiration sources.  I had already cut the bottom off of the waffle weave shirt, which is worn to a comfortable softness, slightly stained, and currently too-short (oops!) to wear even as a pj top.

I have pinned a tissue-thin plaid as a skirt, some double-folded silk as a mini-peplum, and attached a swatch of embroidered linen over a hole in the chest.  Of course, it would be great to dye the cotton top first, but I’m not there yet.

I am mostly piecing the ‘Middle Passage’ quilt today, which has moved from the board to the floor, and which will NOT be short-cutted by having an informing idea, apparently.  My newest strategy in that regard?  To have slightly more straightforward projects to go to when the going gets too daunting.  Last night I made one-inch, paper-pieced hexagons.  This ‘dress’ might also be something to go to.