First Series | Ten Questions About Cloth
Part 4 | Who Held the Needle?
When we think of sashiko, many of us picture a woman with a needle in her hand. And in the historical sources I have read, women appear again and again in sewing and stitching. But there is another part of the story: the woman holding the needle was not necessarily the only person involved in making the clothing, and sewing may have been only one part of her day.
Note: Unless an established English edition exists, English titles given for Japanese historical sources are working translations used in this Journal.
More Than One Pair of Hands
田中忠三郎氏『南部つづれ 菱刺し模様集』—Chuzaburo Tanaka, Nambu Tsuzure: Hishizashi Pattern Collection (working English translation)—records an example from the Momoishi and Gonohe areas of Aomori. When making a type of close-fitting work trousers called tattsuke, men cut the cloth and women layered and stitched it together.
This is one regional example, not a rule for all of Japan. But it tells us something useful: a garment was not necessarily made from beginning to end by one person. Different hands could be involved in different parts of the work.
Sewing Was One Part of a Long Day
田中忠三郎氏『図説 みちのくの古布の世界』—Chuzaburo Tanaka, The World of Old Textiles in Michinoku (working English translation)—describes women sewing during winter, sometimes after the rest of the family had gone to sleep. 福井貞子氏『木綿口伝』—Sadako Fukui, Momen Kuden (working English translation)—records the memories of Tsuchi Kawashima, born in 1887, who recalled growing cotton, spinning thread, weaving cloth, doing farm work, and continuing to work at night.
This is one woman’s memory, so it should not be used to describe every woman’s life. But it helps us see that, for some women, sewing came after many other kinds of work. The person holding the needle may already have spent much of the day farming, working at home, spinning thread, or weaving cloth.
Who Held the Needle?
From here, this is canoha’s interpretation. In many of the sources I have read, women are the ones described as doing the stitching. But I do not want to stop at the simple image of “a woman doing sashiko.” I want to know more about the person behind the stitches. What else did she do that day? When did she find time to sew? Who else had already worked on the cloth before it reached her hands?
When I read about women continuing to sew after the day’s work was done and the rest of the family had gone to sleep, I also wonder what those late hours felt like. Perhaps, for some, it was finally a quiet moment after a long day. Working with needle and cloth may sometimes have given them a little time of their own, or simply a moment to settle their mind.
But I do not want to romanticize that picture. Daily life could involve long hours of physically demanding work. There was farm work, work around the home, spinning, weaving, and all the other tasks needed to keep a household going. There was also family to care for. And after all of that, some women still picked up a needle at night.
I cannot imagine doing the same in my own life today. Perhaps those quiet hours with a needle offered a little rest. But they came at the end of days that must often have been exhausting. When I think about how much work those women carried, I feel a deep respect for them.
What stays with me most is not only who held the needle, but what kind of day that person had before she held it.
Looking at sashiko this way brings the stitches back into everyday life. And once we look at everyday life, another question appears. If people lived differently from place to place, wouldn’t the way they worked with cloth also be different?