What is Hosokawa Dyeing?

Have you ever heard of “Hosokawa Dyeing,” in which two stencils are used to dye? This technique involves repeating “resist paste placement, dyeing, rinsing, resist paste removal, and drying” two or more times to create a single pattern.

Skilled craftsmanship is required to perform the “resist paste placing/dyeing” process on a pattern dyed once, using a different pattern paper.

Hosokawa Garasha, the third daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide and married to Hosokawa Tadaoki, is the origin of the term Hosokawa-zome. The term Hosokawa-zome is derived from an anecdote about an old kimono dyed with a different pattern and then reproduced with a new one. Thus, using two or more patterns and multicolor dyeing is called “Hosokawa-zome.”

One of the characteristics of Hosokawa Dyeing is the ability to overlap patterns and dye adjacent colors. We will introduce the process of Hosokawa Dyeing with “Cats Neko-Zanmai” a popular tenugui towel featuring a free-spirited cat.

 

Tenugui towel｜Soap bubble

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One of the characteristics of Hosokawa Dyeing is the ability to overlap patterns and dye adjacent colors. We will introduce the process of Hosokawa Dyeing with “Nekosanmai”, a popular tenugui towel featuring a free-spirited cat.

Pattern 1｜Dye the background color

1. Place resist paste on the hollowed-out cat part with resist paste

2. Pour yellow dye into the uncoated resist area and dye

The following is work other than pattern paper

3. Wash in cold water to remove resist paste

4. Drying

5. Roll the dough

1st pattern: Glue on the cat part ⇒ Dye the unglued background yellow

Pattern 2｜Dyeing the outline of the cat

1. Overlap the pattern dyed with the first pattern with the outline of the second pattern and place glue on top of it.
2. Pour the dye into the uncoated area with the resist paste and dye.
The following is work other than pattern paper
3. Wash with water to remove the glue
4. Drying
5. Roll the dough
6. Cutting
7. Fold and complete!

The first dyeing, washing, and drying process causes the bleached fabric to stretch and warp, and the second type of glue placement is done while adjusting the fabric’s warping, so the work relies on the craftsman’s skill.
The finished tenugui towel will have slight discrepancies in patterns, but no two are the same, and this is a characteristic of the handmade process.

1st pattern: Resist paste on the cat pattern⇒ Dye the uncoated with resist paste background with yellow

2nd pattern: Place resist paste while matching the outline of the cat to the previously dyed yellow pattern ⇒. Dye the outline of the cat and the fishbone.

The cat pattern's three parts are done!

Fruits” and ‘Shabondama (bubbles),’ with their colorful layers of color, are also illustrated.

Fruit

(1) The first pattern is dyed mainly in red, and the first color of “grapes” is dyed.

(2) The second pattern is dyed yellow and green, and the second color, “Grapes,” is dyed with small parts of fruits, tangerine stems, cherry stems, and so on.

It is completed! The grapes are dyed in two shades of gray to create a three-dimensional effect.

Bubbles 

(1) The first pattern is dyed in light pink, light blue, and yellow using the “bokashi-dyeing” technique. The outer outlines are dyed darker, and the inner outlines are dyed lighter.

(2) The second pattern is dyed slightly darker than the first, using the “bokashi-dyeing” technique to blur the light blue and blue.

This is the finished product! Light colors and overlapping patterns express the transparency of the bubbles.

As you can see in the illustration, the pattern fits beautifully, but it isn’t easy to dye the bleached fabric one by one while gluing the dyed fabric to the bleached fabric.

The framed tenugui towel is Kiba. This quaint pattern depicts a scene from an ancient commercial culture, but this one is called “Sanpen Hosokawa” and uses three pieces of patterned paper.

The process is repeated three times, which causes the fabric to stretch and warp more than in the case of the second type. This results in pattern deviations, but the advantage is that no two pieces will be identical.

This dyeing process of matching patterns is also called “Hamari-Hosokawa,” but nowadays, few craftsmen can use this technique.

In this issue, we introduced double-stencil dyeing.
Tenugui towels use various techniques to express multiple designs within the same 33cm x 90cm size.
It is fun to imagine how tenugui towels are dyed. Please try it with your tenugui towel.