Magenta/Blue/Black Tiny Floral "Print" Ikat, Still Basted Pieced Piece of Arai-hari, Meisen Kimono Silk from Japan 14" x 118" #ZP-50"

Classic meisen kimono silk, in a small-scale print-look ikat that is unusual for meisen. This silk is sleek and soft, thin and light, a bit crisp, smooth, with body, in excellent condition. A true, difficult ikat, both sides are the same, and the tiny black, blue and light gray flowers have Meisen's classic desirable blur.  This piece is pieced, because it is part of an araihari process, for cleaning a kimono.   

It's a 14" wide, 118" long piece that has been hand basted from six pieces: two large pieces about 10.5" x 59", sewn to the length of 118".  And... a long strip to widen the 10.5" width to 14". The long strip was also pieced, from four 3.5" wide pieces.  So if you were to remove the white hand basting, you'd have those six pieces. 

Araihari is still sometimes used for cleaning fine kimono in Japan, and back in the day was important and often used for better kimonos.  For cleaning or storage, the kimono was taken apart stitch by stitch, then several rectangular pieces (in various sizes) were laid out like a long silk puzzle to its original bolt form, then basted and pieced together into pieces such as this, which were easier to clean and maintain the quality of the silk. You can see the basted seams attaching each piece to the next. We think it was cleaned then stored, with the intention of being taken apart (again) to make another kimono. This was only part of the kimono; somewhere in the world there may be similar pieces from the same kimono. It's in excellent condition and may be fairly new or barely worn. Lovely!  Order "1" for the pieced piece.    

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