This is a post by one of Mirrix's 2026 Brand Ambassadors, Lauren Chong Sng. Follow Lauren on Instagram @abcrags here.
Japanese rag weaving, aka sakiori, is one of my favorite things. Feeling I couldn’t afford to buy an authentic antique piece, making my own was very appealing. Sakiori was cloth woven from strips of worn and tattered clothing, giving it a second life in an even more durable form.
Silk Japanese kimono linings, quilter's cottons, and cotton kantha from India and Pakistan have all been used in my weaving. Kimono linings have richly dyed color. Quilting cotton is too dense for my liking. Kantha is perfect, and there is so much of it once the layers are disassembled. It is lightweight and loosely woven, and the finished cloth has a tactile quality that I am after.
I have tried tearing strips of many kinds of cloth. Natural fibers tear easily on the grain. Frayed edges give a wonderful texture. I tear almost to the selvedge, make another cut nearby, then tear again — this method gives long, continuous lengths of weaving weft. My preferred width is roughly 3/8”.
My friend @mottainai_hawaii had an authentic sakiori fragment. She brought it to one of our coffee dates and we studied it carefully. With her permission, I removed a small piece of weft and we carefully unrolled it. The cotton was loosely woven and tattered. Kantha cloth is much like what we found in genuine sakiori, and in better condition.
Mirrix Big Sister was the perfect loom to weave a hat band using a continuous warp and instructions can be found here. I used bottom spring, cotton seine twine for warp, and lots of torn kantha scraps for color, with overlapped ends. Following are photos from the project.
