A Length of Beautifully Colored Zanshi ori: Leftover Yarn

early to mid twentieth century
60" x 13 1/4", 152.5 cm x 33.5 cm

Zanshi ori is cloth that is woven from threads either leftover from home production of yarn making, or from broken threads that were purchased from local commercial weavers.  Usually the weft is fed with these random threads while generally the warp is regulated producing an irregular horizontal 'striping'; if home threads are used, knotted slubs can often be seen.

This is a particularly good example of zanshi ori because of its age but more so because you can easily see the structure of the left over yarns: they are randomly fed, they are evident at the top of the length while at the bottom of the length the leftover weft yarns are fed against the warp in a regular pattern.

The arbitrary patterning at the top of this length is exactly what you want to see in zanshi ori cloth and this length is a fine example of this genre of folk textiles.

Please do know this length has been worn hard: there are threadbare areas to the selvedges and some loss.

A handsome, good length of zanshi ori.