Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Three scarves recently completed.
Did I ever mention I love Indigo???
All three of these were dyed from the same pot of indigo. I really love the full range of blues (and even a purple sheened navy blue) that can be gotten from indigo. No wonder the Japanese language has so many specific names for shdes of indigo produced blue.
Sometimes found with the name fundoutsunagi, this is a design that dates at least to the Nara period (645-794), like the shippō design. It has been used in woven textiles such as twills and brocades, along with dyed textiles and sashiko. I have tried this one successfully using ori-nui shibori (stitched resist) and am currently working on a piece of linen to execute it in awase-nui shibori (stitched resist that stitches through two parallel folds of cloth to produce a pocket between them—commonly used to execute a shippō design element).
The design and the name come from the shape of one of the traditional counterweights used on scales in Japan. Fundo literally means “weight” and tsunagi means “link”. I have also seen shippō written as shippō-tsunagi.

- fundo-tsunagi on indigo
(12×12 pixels)

- fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(12×12 pixel)

- fundo-tsunagi on indigo
(24×24 pixels)

- fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(24×24 pixel)

- fundo-tsunagi with indigo background
(48×48 pixel)

- fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(48×48 pixel)

- fundo-tsunagi with indigo background
(96×96 pixel)

- fundo-tsunagi with transparent background
(96×96 pixel)

- two tone grey fundo-tsunagi background pattern
(96×96 pixel)
If some of the images appear blank—just a thin line frame around nothing—then your browser (most likely IE) has an issue displaying transparent .png files. The image is there, right click on the “empty” box and “Save Picture As” or “Save Target As”.