A Beautifully Old Two Panel Patched and Tattered Hemp Kaya: Traditional Mosquito Netting

late nineteenth, early twentieth century
80" x 29", 203.5 cm x 73.5 cm

This patched and mended translucent beauty is hand stitched from two lengths of hand woven, open-weave hemp cloth, a kind of mesh.  

This type of woven bast fiber is kaya, or mosquito netting, and this two panel piece was taken from a large tent which would have been draped around a futon for protection against mosquitoes during Japan's famously hot, humid and buggy summers.

The hemp cloth is woven from wiry, hand plied yarns and is dyed green, more than likely the result of dyeing the cloth first in indigo and then in a yellow dye stuff.  

This two panel piece, as can easily be seen, is threadbare in one area while the other weak spots have been beautifully patched and mended using re-purposed, hemp and indigo dyed cotton cloth.  

About a dozen pieces are used to mend the piece and on each panel there are patches from top to bottom, in sporadic yet necessary arrangement.

This is a soulful boro textile, one with a good dash of the spirit of old Japan when this kind of mosquito netting was ubiquitous and, in many cases, woven in the house it was to be used in.

Recommended--this kind of good quality, visually alluring, full, rich, patched mosquito nets are increasingly difficult to locate in Japan.