When Freecycling for friends turns up treasure

Still helping clear my friend's house, and freecycling once again, and her sister had kept out some items she thought should come to me, since she figured they have artistic value to me.  Was she ever right.

Here are pix: no the red brocade dress won't work for me. I'm small but not that small, and I'm sending that onto a good home.  But the stole (I think that's what it is, anyone who knows better, please say) with sashiko embroidery, stays.  I'm showing you the blue side of it and the red side, it's reversible.  

And the little tapestry with the stencil dyeing, complete with sales slip showing it's the work of a Japanese textile artist. It's katazome, I'm reading from the slip, made by a member of MoegiKai, an artist group specializing in dyeing, and in working in katazome.  The president of the group was named a national treasure.  So this is a seriously good group of artists.  The process of stencil cutting and dyeing is all handwork. No indication on the piece of who the artist is.  That stays, too.

I'll take both of these in to my stitching group and let them see, too, since there's interest in any textile art, particularly in sashiko, which one of our members wants to explore and maybe teach.

These items are very likely created for the tourist trade, since they came from a Japan trip made by my friend, but they're pretty high end. The blue of the stole is variegated in broad stripes, very subtle.

If anyone can tell us more about either of these pieces, the style, whether that piece is in fact a stole -- it's split to within about a foot of the top hem, and sits easily on your shoulders, ends draped down the front, which makes me think this --and so on, please do. 

What I've learned in the last hour!