Sashiko: A Frugal, Prayerful Skill
In Chapter 3, Tanjiro recalls Nezuko repairing an old kimono she's fond of. The first fanbook expands on Nezuko's sewing skills, going so far as to say that this is her hobby and she is so good at it that her work can be sold.
We also know from the second fanbook that she increased the size of Kuwajima's haori so Zenitsu could wear it (including a little dyeing work), and she managed to repair Giyuu's extremely tattered haori. She made it nearly the same as before, despite how much of the fabric was missing. During the time she worked on it, Giyuu was in a coma, and for a time, it looked like he might die. Each day she worked on the haori, she called out for him to come back.
There's a lot that could be said about each of these skills, but I am not a crafty person. Today I just want to focus on a textile technique I always assumed/headcanoned Nezuko was using, especially given the unfinished state of it in the manga panel: sashiko.
Here's the basic idea from the main Wikipedia image:
This style of embroidery is usually seen with thick, multi-strand, cream-colored thread against indigo-dyed fabrics like hemp and cotton, though the multi-strand thread might also be dyed a light blue in many traditional styles. The repeating patterns were both decorative and practical. These stitches were used for repairing clothes by adding patchwork, strengthening clothes before they can tear, and adding extra warmth by filling in the gaps in light (but readily available) fabrics like hemp.
Sashiko is coming back into vogue nowadays for its use of traditional patterns and motifs and environment consciousness. Nowadays it's more of a fashion statement, and because they are so labor intensive, detailed sashiko items tend to be expensive. However, this was a rustic art form born of poverty and necessity. It was intended to strengthen textiles for labor-intensive lifestyles and/or make them last for generations.
Sashiko is especially associated with northern prefectures like Aomori and Yamagata, where cotton could be scarce even during the Edo economic heyday. However, you could find sashiko in plenty of rural places across the country. There are some regional characteristics like the kinds of colors, materials, and shapes that were used, but when it comes to the actual stitching methods and patterns, these were like family recipes. Just like every poor family had to cook, they had to mend.
This means that prior to sashiko's recent fashionable resurgence, it went through a period of rarity. Like how subsistence food loses its appeal as you can afford a more appetizing diet, so too does sashiko lose its appeal. Not only did diets and fashions rapidly change in the Meiji period with influence from the West, but trains made it easier to transport goods like warm fabric across the country. Sashiko as fashion soon felt like millet as diet; it felt like something only the poorest, thriftiest of people would bother with.
And who do we know who is thrifty and talented at textiles? Nezuko.
There are other in-universe reasons I assumed she was doing sashiko in Tanjiro's flashback. Primarily because the asanoha pattern is common in sashiko. For example, here's a dustcloth (my hand included for scale).
The smaller and more detailed a pattern is, the better it accomplishes its job. In earlier Gotouge art, the asanoha pattern on Nezuko's kimono was smaller. Aside from keeping human Nezuko warm up on snowy Mt. Kumotori, this also would have made her kimono better able to stand up to all the abuse it goes through once she becomes a demon.
Other setting details make it feel like this would make sense. For example, the Kamado family's ichimatsu pattern blends well with "boro" patchwork, a clothing mending method often incorporated with sashiko stitching techniques. Urokodaki's seigaiha pattern even seems to be drawn in a way that implies sashiko-style stitching with thick thread (and indeed, that's also a common sashiko pattern).
The thing about embroidery patterns is that even though they are rustic and lovely, they can be really impractical to draw over and over. By the time the anime character designs came out a few years later, the seigaiha lines were smoothed and the asanoha pattern ballooned into having large gaps.
By the time we got live action stage plays and mass-produced cosplay, these lines got thicker and flatter. My next question would be to wonder what other late Meiji methods could be used cheaply enough to make such a stark asanoha pattern, but alas, I am not a textile expert.
That said, people really care about sashiko. Many kimono-making methods are extremely labor intensive, but sashiko wasn't made by artisans. It was made by families, for families. Although sashiko stitches can now be done by machine, some people feel that this can't be called sashiko. Sashiko is in the act, not the result. Even the handkerchief I bought with the asanoha pattern would take far more than an hour to hand stitch.
There's some meditative about hand-stitching. There's something prayerful about it.
Sashiko was worth the effort to keep your family clothed and warm, and often, traditional motifs and geometric patterns had auspicious meanings, or were meant to protect people and ward off misfortune. Even Nezuko's asanoha pattern she wore since she was very small contains a wish for a child to grow strong and healthy, like the hemp plant that inspired it. If Nezuko kept repairing that kimono with sashiko, it's probably a stitch she learned from her mother, just like she'd have learned recipes from her.
We know how sincerely Nezuko prayed for Giyuu's recovery. She likely poured that same prayer into every stitch as she repaired his haori, sashiko or not.
"Sashiko: The Untold Story" by artisan Futatsuya Atsushi. I haven't read it (and it just came out anyway), but I came across the author talking about it and I was like, "Oh yeah, sashiko. I have meant to write a post about that since forever ago." He is now coming up everywhere as I am refreshing myself on this folk art.
Also, here's another post of mine about other practical skills the Kamado family might have had.
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