A Length of Beautifully Woven Zanshi Ori: Leftover Yarn Weaving

late nineteenth, early twentieth century
66" x 13", 168 cm x 33 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 cluster at the top of the length while the bottom of the length is spare in evidence of leftover yarns.

This kind of arbitrary patterning is exactly what you want to see in zanshi ori cloth and this length is exemplary 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, both of which are indicated on the detail photo which accompanies this post.

A handsome, good length of zanshi ori.