A Length of Zanshi Ori: Plaid Giving Way to Chaos

early twentieth century
69" x 13 1/4", 175 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 length is very interesting because it shows two very distinct areas of weaving types.

The bottom of the length shows a regularly-patterned woven plaid design that is controlled and well-thought-out.

However the top half of the length shows weft yarns that are randomly fed against the warp which produces a kind of blurred and irregular effect.

There are also the presence of many knots and the slubs that occur when knotted yarn is used.

On the top, irregularly patterned portion there are some snags to the cloth, shown, and on the bottom there are faint, almost imperceptible stains, perhaps too light to mention here.

This is a wonderfully instructional length of zanshi ori cloth as it clearly shows the difference between "regular" woven cotton with a controlled warp and weft as well as the randomly fed weft that characterizes zanshi ori.

Recommended.