Japanese Tenugui Cloth

We first stumbled on these watching master bladesmith Vincent Kazuhito Lau sharpen knives (pictured here) at his home base just a stone’s throw from Best Made. As you can see he uses them for just about everything: stabilizing his bench stones, wiping down his knives, keeping his work area nice and dry. The tenugui has been a traditional staple of the Japanese home, used as a hand towel, dishcloth, washcloth, handkerchief, etc… They also make great headband / sweatband, and are often used to denote participants in various Japanese sporting endeavors. In the wabi-sabi spirit of things these are not hemmed so expect some slight fraying (and character!).