Lujin Weaving Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The Lu brocade (Lujin) of Juancheng County is said to have originated in the Yuan dynasty; during the Qing dynasty, the Lu brocade of Puzhou (present-day Juancheng County, Shandong Province) was used as a tribute product.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Lu brocade is a textile of Shandong, woven with colored cotton threads in warp and weft. Because its geometric patterns are as brilliant as brocade, it is called "Lu brocade"; in southwestern Shandong it is commonly known as "tubu" (homeland cloth) or "cubu" (coarse cloth), among other names. The Lu brocade weaving craft is mainly distributed in the cities of Jining and Heze in Shandong Province and surrounding areas, with Juancheng County and Jiaxiang County of Jining City being the most representative. The Lu brocade of Juancheng County interweaves colored threads into various geometric patterns, and through changes such as parallelism, repetition, continuity, spacing, and contrast of the geometric patterns, forms a distinctive rhythm and cadence. The patterns are exquisite and antique, the colors brilliant, the varieties numerous, the texture fine and dense, comfortable and durable. Its unique hand-operated jacquard weaving craft and strongly color-contrasting patterns are clearly distinct from the hand-woven cloth of other regions of Shandong, possessing a vivid local character. Over the long course of years, the ingenious peasant women of Juancheng have continuously innovated and improved the Lu brocade weaving craft, gradually forming the unique modern Lu brocade style that integrates jacquard, pattern-beating, and pattern-picking techniques into one, showing brilliance within strength and refinement within ruggedness. Jiaxiang County produced mulberry and silkworms as early as the Spring and Autumn period, and its textile industry was highly developed. After the Yuan dynasty, cotton was planted on a large scale in Shandong, and the people of Jiaxiang applied the traditional silk-weaving skills to cotton textile craft, forming a folk cotton-cloth brocade. The Lu brocade weaving craft of Jiaxiang County comprises a total of 72 process steps, of which warping the warp, threading the reed, and threading the heddles are the most essential. The Lu brocade weaving of Jiaxiang County can dye 22 kinds of colored threads and weave around two thousand patterns. Jiaxiang County's Lu brocade has beautiful patterns, a great variety of types, and auspicious meanings; moreover, using natural raw materials and purely hand-woven, it is comfortable, environmentally friendly, widely applicable, and of strong practical value.
Recorded Process Steps
The Lu brocade weaving craft of Jiaxiang County comprises a total of 72 process steps, of which warping the warp, threading the reed, and threading the heddles are the most essential.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Lu brocade was in the past mostly used as dowry, greatly enhancing the festive flavor of the local marriage customs.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Lujin Weaving Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Zhao Fangyun (per official archival records of the associated inheritor): female, Han ethnicity, born in July 1944, from Jiaxiang County, Shandong Province. Representative inheritor of the Lu brocade weaving craft, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the third batch. Lu brocade weaving technician. Since childhood she followed her mother in learning the entire set of Lu brocade weaving techniques; by her youth she had already mastered the weaving skills of all kinds of heddles and all the locally popular patterns, and her ability in color coordination kept improving. After entering middle age, on the basis of the traditional weaving craft she innovated and uniquely created the Chinese-character weaving technique of Lu brocade, adding to its cultural flavor. At the same time, she also designed nearly a hundred kinds of brilliant, elegant, and dignified patterns. She has consistently dedicated herself to the transmission of the Lu brocade weaving craft, training a large number of inheritors.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhao Fangyun 03-1363
- Liu Aiyu
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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