Japan's Sewing Boxes, Needles & Thread

About this book

The only English guide that takes the sewing kit itself as its whole subject. Two hundred entries read Japan's hand-sewing tools the way their makers and keepers do — the thing itself first, then its work, its making and its keeping: the haribako sewing box read as a working constitution; the needle's eye, groove, point and backwards numbering; the needle towns of Hiroshima and the three-century-old Misuya counter in Kyoto; thread weighed, waxed, matched and stored; the thimble, the shears, the hera, the chalk and the kukedai clamp; the bench work from a button to a tatami edge; kits composed for the schoolchild, the bride, the soldier and the tailor; and the keeper's craft of choosing, inventorying, resting and retiring the small steel citizens.

Every entry follows one uniform four-field structure, so the two-hundredth tool is as easy to interrogate as the first. The book asserts no shop's current prices, hours or event dates, and no antique's value or provenance; every entry closes by pointing to the official source for current details. Customs are reported as customs. The stitch patterns belong to their own volume; this is the book of the tools.