Shifu

a spun and woven paper textile

Shifu is the Japanese art of spinning and weaving handmade paper into cloth. Shifu is made with at least one spun paper element, usually weft but sometimes both warp and weft. The other element (usually warp) is silk or cotton. Shifu is surprisingly light in weight, yet warm to the touch, and originally provided rural Japanese people with an alternative, locally sourced (homemade) and inexpensive, cloth. My idiosyncratic take on shifu is what I call North Country Shifu. I spin paper, often without the traditional moisture or pre-spinning, which yields a rough and slubby yarn. When woven these threads make a  distinctive and beautiful surface. I use larger textiles for book covers, and weave smaller, four or more selvage shaped textiles for book pages. These are usually moro-jifu (shifu of both paper warp and weft) and are needle woven on simple looms.