Okitama tsumugi

Oitama Tsumugi belongs to the Oitama region in southern Yamagata. Within that region, Yonezawa City is tied to plant-dyed work, Nagai City to Nagai Tsumugi, and Shirataka Town in Nishioitama District to Shirataka Tsumugi. The family includes plant-dyed tsumugi, weft kasuri, combined warp-and-weft kasuri, and board-resist small kasuri, so the first concrete view is a map of places and techniques.

The growth of Oitama Tsumugi is linked to Uesugi Yozan of the Yonezawa domain, whose encouragement of local industry is tied to the textile’s fuller development. That history matters because the cloth is described through work inside a region: dyeing in Yonezawa, kasuri in Nagai, and board-resist dyeing in Shirataka. The visible division of work among the three places carries the historical context in concrete form.

The material base is concrete: raw silk, dupion silk, and floss-silk spun yarn. Many Oitama Tsumugi techniques share the practice of dyeing the yarn before plain weaving, which means color and kasuri placement are prepared before the fabric is formed. When warp and weft meet in weaving, plant color and resist-dyed sections have already been set into the yarn.

Yonezawa plant-dyed tsumugi uses plant dyes such as safflower, kariyasu, and logwood. The safflower route gives a concrete sequence: flowers are picked, washed and kneaded, fermented into safflower cakes, then the color is drawn out with ash lye and applied to yarn. The finished color is connected to a chain of flower, water, fermentation, lye, and dyeing.

In Shirataka board-resist small kasuri, pattern is prepared before weaving by winding warp and weft threads around carved boards. The boards are clamped, dye enters the spaces or grooves, and the thread is dyed in separated areas. Later, the warp and weft kasuri threads are matched by hand so the small motifs appear in plain weave instead of being added afterward.

Nagai Tsumugi is described through two kasuri routes. In weft kasuri, the kasuri thread is used in the weft; in combined kasuri, kasuri threads are used in both warp and weft. The pattern depends on hand alignment of dyed threads, and the dyeing methods can include hand tying, hand rubbing, or stencil printing, so the motif is planned in the yarn before the fabric surface appears.

Oitama Tsumugi is made for use as cloth, with kimono fabric, hakama, obi, and bags named among its main products. Those uses give the techniques a practical frame: Yonezawa’s plant-dyed yarn, Nagai’s aligned kasuri, and Shirataka’s board-resist small motifs all return to fabric that is worn, tied, or carried. The textile’s variety stays close to the body and to handled objects.