Tanmono

[4] Tanmono are woven in the narrow widths most ergonomic for a single weaver[2] (at a handloom without a flying shuttle).

Tanmono may be woven of a variety of fibers, including silk, wool, hemp, linen and cotton.

[5][6] In the Jomon period (8000–300 BC) people made twined textiles from a variety of bast fibers from wild plants.

[8] In the 7th and 8th century AD, Tang-dynasty immigrants brought new production techniques for textiles, and Japanese silk weaving improved.

Cotton did not become widely available throughout Japan until the mid-1700s; commoners continued to rely on wild and cultivated bast fibers.

Second-hand cotton cloth was, however, sold to rural farmers outside these areas, and was preferred over hemp fabric for its softness and heat-retaining properties.

[10] Meisen, a bright, crisp, durable fabric machine-made from silk noil, was first made in the late 19th century and became extremely popular in the 1920s and 1930s.

Shusu-ori is satin weave; it is thick and lustrous with a heavy drape,[20][21] but the long floats mean that the fabric tends to snag.

[25] Traditionally an article of thrift, sakiori obi are now expensive informal pieces of clothing, prized for their limited production and craftsmanship.

[27][better source needed] In approximately the Meiji period (1868–1912), the bolt length for kimono was standardized.

[26] By the 20th century, the standard width of a woman's tanmono was roughly 35 centimetres (14 in), with men's tanmono being woven wider, to roughly 40–45 centimetres (16–18 in); historically, bolts were woven to order, so length would vary by both the size of the wearer and the type of garment.

When the cloth is worn out, it may be used as fabric for smaller items or to create boroboro (patchwork) futons or garments.

The fact that the pattern pieces of a kimono consist of rectangles, and not complex shapes, make reuse in other items or garments easier.

If a tanmono is to be used for a formal kimono, such as a hōmongi, tsukesage, irotomesode or kurotomesode, it is temporarily stitched together (kari-eba) so the pattern can be drawn across the seams.

[33] Sakiori obi are one-sided, and also often feature ikat-dyed designs of stripes, checks and arrows, commonly using indigo dyestuff.

As the pattern is made by varying the texture of the weave, it can be additionally decorated with dyed or embroidered patters.

[citation needed] For repeated patterns covering a large area of base cloth, resist dyeing is typically applied using a stencil, a technique known as katazome.

The stencils used for katazome were traditionally made of washi paper layers laminated together with an unripened persimmon tannin dye known as kakishibu.

Though hand-applied resist dyeing on high-end kimono is used so that different colours of dye can be hand-applied within the open spaces left, for rural clothes and fabrics, tsutsugaki was often applied to plain cloth before it was repeatedly dipped in an indigo dye vat, leading to the iconic appearance of white-and-indigo rural clothes, with rice paste sometimes applied over previously open areas to create areas of lighter blue on a darker indigo background.

This was a common technique in the Muromachi period, and was revived in the 20th century by Japanese dye artist Itchiku Kubota.