A Wide and Beautifully Colored Sakiori Obi: Ragweave

ca. mid twentieth century
120" x 10", 305 cm x 25.5 cm 

This is a very attractive, beautifully colored, wide sakiori obi, which is a rustic, traditional kimono sash that is woven using shredded cloth as its weft yarn.

The warp yarns are very fine, black cotton and the weft yarn is composed of narrow strips of repurposed cotton.  Looking carefully into the weft area of the obi you can see that most of the home made yarns used for this obi are variegated in color, which means that either patterned or kasuri (ikat) cotton was used to make the weft yarns.  Very interesting.

This lovely obi is in good, used condition, with no visible stains or holes.  There is, however, a lightly ingrained crease along the length of the obi, in its center, indicating that this obi was folded in half before it was worn.

A beautiful, elegant folk textile.