Arare Tenugui

A staple of the Japanese household since the 9th century, the humble Tenugui is a hand-dyed rectangular cloth (13 x 35") equally at home in the pocket, as it is in the kitchen or the workshop. Ours are hand-dyed in Japan using "chusen", a traditional technique in which the dye penetrates the cloth rather than sitting on its surface, leaving the pattern visible on both sides and the hand remarkably soft. Each pattern carries its own name and meaning. In the wabi-sabi spirit, the edges are left unhemmed, so expect some slight fraying, and the character that comes with it. Roughly translated, Arare means "hail" in Japan, specifically the small, winter variety, no bigger than five millimeters across. The pattern scatters tiny dots across the cloth, as if caught mid-fall.