Ueda tsumugi

The place name matters for Ueda Tsumugi. Ueda City’s background in sericulture, silkworm-egg production, and cocoon production is part of the textile’s setting, and Koiwai Tsumugi Studio describes its own family roots through silkworm eggs, sericulture, and later tsumugi weaving.

The studio works along the old Hokkoku Kaido in Shinshu Ueda. Its account says Ueda Tsumugi weaving has been passed down in Ueda for about four hundred years; in practical terms, that continuity appears in dyed yarn, preparation before weaving, handwoven stripes and checks, and the effort to keep the cloth strong enough for wear.

Ueda Tsumugi is a silk textile built from silk warp and tsumugi weft. Tsumugi yarn is spun from mawata, a silk-wadding material made with cocoons that cannot be reeled into smooth raw silk, so the yarn naturally carries uneven thickness.

That unevenness gives the cloth part of its hand. Compared with raw silk drawn directly from cocoons, tsumugi yarn leaves small slubs in the woven surface, creating a soft, warm feel; when the yarns cross in stripes and checks, the surface keeps a quiet irregularity instead of an industrial flatness.

At Koiwai Tsumugi Studio, the work is organized into three broad stages: dyeing, preparation, and weaving. One local dyeing practice uses apple bark from nearby farms to produce pale yellow yarn.

That apple-bark practice belongs specifically to Koiwai’s described work, not to every Ueda Tsumugi piece. Even with that boundary, it gives the textile a concrete local thread: bark from farms near the studio, color taken in the dyeing stage, and yarn later arranged into stripes or checks before the loom begins its work.

The stripes and checks of Ueda Tsumugi are not surface decoration added after weaving. In Koiwai’s preparation stage, the spacing of yarn, cloth width, length, and color arrangement are set before the yarn reaches the loom.

The weaving therefore carries an order already planned by hand. Warp, weft, width, length, and color density work together to form clean stripes or checks, while also protecting the sturdy character that Koiwai identifies as one of Ueda Tsumugi’s defining features.

One kimono bolt is about thirteen meters long. Koiwai Tsumugi Studio says weaving a bolt takes at least ten days and can sometimes take several months, because the weft must be beaten in densely and with steady pressure.

If the beat is too weak, the cloth loses strength; if it is too hard, the cloth can become stiff. Ueda Tsumugi’s durability rests in repeated hand movements that balance weight, density, and a supple feel against the body.

Ueda Tsumugi is carried by more than one workshop. The Ueda Tsumugi Textile Cooperative appears with makers and related participants such as Fujimoto, Oridokoro Marushige, Takazawa Orimono, Koiwai Tsumugi Studio, and Warakuza, with examples including handwoven kimono yardage, crepe stoles, and silk stoles.

Around 2013, the Kaikohime Project connected guidance from the Shinshu University Faculty of Textile Science and Technology farm, sericulture volunteers, and silk thread produced in Ueda. The continuity here is concrete: people raised silkworms, obtained thread, and the cooperative’s workshops used it for new kimono yardage and stole products.

Isuikan, in Ueda’s Maruko area, was built in 1918 and is tied to the modern silk industry. A Ueda City program there brought together an explanation of the building, a talk on Ueda Tsumugi, kimono dressing, and a kimono runway.

Koiwai Karina of Koiwai Tsumugi Studio spoke about Ueda Tsumugi in that setting; her work background includes dyeing, warping, and weaving. When the cloth is worn in the room, its stripes, sheen, and handwoven weight move through sleeves, waistlines, and steps instead of remaining only on a loom or folded bolt.