ca. mid twentieth century
116" x 7 1/2", 294 cm x 19 cm

The beautifully strong-yet-muted shades of purple, lavender, blue and brown that are used to compose this rag weave obi are really stunning combination of colors.

Obis such as this were woven from shredded clothing and bedding, so you can say they were "recycled" from old cloth, however in old Japan cloth was constantly re-worked and re-purposed.  Until fairly recently most  Japanese country cloth was hand woven in the home, so naturally one would take great care to exhaust the life from a textile since so much hand work went into its production.

This is a long obi or kimono sash in good condition: it is narrow, what is called han haba or half-width, and as sakiori obis go, this one is just wonderful.

Recommended.