A Complex Length of Boro Zanshi: Leftover Threads

Zanshi 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 the case here in this long and beautifully colored length of indigo dyed zanshi cotton cloth.

Look carefully at the detail photos to see how the variegated, leftover weft yarns form a random pattern down the length of the cloth--and how color starts and stops within the weft.  This is due to leftover threads of different colors being knotted together to form one spool.

Note as well the eight, hand stitched patches which were applied both for mending and reinforcement against the possibility of tearing.

A really fantastically patterned and colored cloth, and one that speaks so much of re-purposing, re-use and re-cycling--to magnificent effect.

Recommended.