Tenugui linen & cotton towel, Chrysanthemum

A hand-dyed rectangular Tenugui cloth, traditionally used in Japan as functional everyday housewares / garments. These Tenugui cloths are created using the Chusen hand-dyeing technique, which dates back to the Meiji Period over 100 years ago and is still used by today's craftspeople, who value its refined textures and visual qualities. The Tenugui is a bleached 60% linen, 40% cotton cloth, about 34 cm wide and 90 cm long. The dyes used produce different shades of colours, depending upon the day's weather, temperature and humidity, and the Tenugui's colours will gradually fade with washing, as the cloth softens. The hand-dyed nature of these cloths mean that shapes and colours will vary from piece to piece. Both ends of the cloth are simply cut and left unhemmed, so slight fraying is to be expected from use. At the beginning of use, threads of the weft become frayed, these threads can be cut. Both ends of the Tenugui become fringes of around 1cm as the cloth is used and washed.