Traditional craft
Yumihama Gasuri
弓浜絣
Deep indigo cotton with white picture motifs from the sandy Yumigahama coast of Tottori, first woven by farm women for their own clothes.
Key facts
- Officially recognised
- 4 September 1975
- Type
- Woven textiles
- Region
- Chugoku
- Official name in Japanese
- 弓浜絣
- Official area (in Japanese)
- 米子市、境港市
Pictures in indigo
Yumihama Gasuri is a cotton ikat with white motifs on deep indigo. Because it began as farm clothing, it has a rough, homespun feel. Its picture ikat shows lucky charms and symbols to ward off bad luck, drawn both delicately and boldly. It is made in Yonago and Sakaiminato in Tottori.
Eighty threads at a time
About 80 cleaned threads are gathered and the parts that will form the motif are tied off before dyeing. When the ties come off, those parts stay white. The weaver separates the threads one by one and lines up the white sections as she weaves, so the picture appears.
It was work clothing, so it had to be tough. That is why real indigo, which gets better the more you wash it, matters so much.
Good to know
- Cushion covers, noren curtains and pouches are the typical buys, and real indigo gets a nicer colour with every wash.
- Sakaiminato is home to the Mizuki Shigeru Memorial Museum, for the creator of the Gegege no Kitaro manga, so it makes an easy day out from Yonago.
Questions travellers ask
What do the patterns mean?
Many are lucky symbols or charms against misfortune, chosen because the cloth was made for everyday life.
Where is Yumihama Gasuri made?
In Yonago and Sakaiminato, on the Yumigahama coast of western Tottori.
Where it comes from
More crafts from the same area
Local foods from the same area
Heritage stories from the same area
Sources
We checked the facts on this page against these sources.