The story I'm working on now has a weaving theme - the skill of someone who can take a lump of fleece or a strip of grass and weave something beautiful fascinates me. When I learned we would be visiting a weaving collective in Peru I was thrilled. And I wasn't disappointed.
This is Nellie. She started the weaving collective we visited in Chinchero (Centro Cultural Parwa) and although she's very shy she is happy to teach foreigners like me how she and her colleagues create their beautiful work. In the photo on the left, the fleece in the basket is wool Nellie's washed using soap made from grated Yucca root. She is spinning with a hand spindle and without carding the wool first. The spun wool is dyed with natural dyes (such as that obtained from the cochineal beetle) and set with natural mordants (such as lemon juice, salt, and the urine of small boys which apparently has more uric acid than any other urine - who knew). When the yarn has been spun and dyed it's ready to weave. Nellie and her fellow weavers use wool, alpaca, and baby alpaca with a backstrap loom and traditional techniques to create stunning patterns. A backstrap loom is tensioned around the weaver's back and can only create a fairly narrow strip of fabric. Watch this video on YouTube if you'd like to see the weaver in action. My knees and back hurt just watching her at work.
This is Nellie. She started the weaving collective we visited in Chinchero (Centro Cultural Parwa) and although she's very shy she is happy to teach foreigners like me how she and her colleagues create their beautiful work. In the photo on the left, the fleece in the basket is wool Nellie's washed using soap made from grated Yucca root. She is spinning with a hand spindle and without carding the wool first. The spun wool is dyed with natural dyes (such as that obtained from the cochineal beetle) and set with natural mordants (such as lemon juice, salt, and the urine of small boys which apparently has more uric acid than any other urine - who knew). When the yarn has been spun and dyed it's ready to weave. Nellie and her fellow weavers use wool, alpaca, and baby alpaca with a backstrap loom and traditional techniques to create stunning patterns. A backstrap loom is tensioned around the weaver's back and can only create a fairly narrow strip of fabric. Watch this video on YouTube if you'd like to see the weaver in action. My knees and back hurt just watching her at work.
The patterns are all created by eye and the work is reversible. Symmetry and complexity with such simple tools - the skill these weavers exhibit is phenomenal. A skilled weaver can complete about 7 cm a day, which means a finished table runner takes 3-4 months of work. We fell in love with the table runner Nellie used in her demonstration (shown on the left) and bought it. Made from baby alpaca it has hummingbirds, puma claws, mountains and potato flowers in its woven designs and is stunning. The weaver who made our table runner is only 20 years old but she's been weaving since she was 10. Because this is a collective, the weavers share the proceeds of any sale and the money is a boon to the whole community as well as to the weavers. When middlemen buy the fabrics and sell them on they give the weavers a small percentage of what the fabrics will eventually be sold for - a collective like this does away with the middleman which means the weavers get a much fairer price for their work. Nellie can now afford to attend university in Cusco to study economics so that she can improve the business and she is able to send both her children to a private school there. She is justifiably proud of the business she's created and the work of her weavers.
On our trip we learned that the collective/community model is common in Peru, especially in the rural areas. Individuals do not own the land - the community owns the land and everyone is expected to pitch in and help with whatever needs doing, whether that's planting, fertilizing or harvesting. If you don't help, you don't eat. Even dogs are communal: although they appear to be strays they usually belong to a neighborhood and the community feeds and houses them.
On the slideshow below I've posted some photos of the weaving process and my new table runner. Please take a look.
On our trip we learned that the collective/community model is common in Peru, especially in the rural areas. Individuals do not own the land - the community owns the land and everyone is expected to pitch in and help with whatever needs doing, whether that's planting, fertilizing or harvesting. If you don't help, you don't eat. Even dogs are communal: although they appear to be strays they usually belong to a neighborhood and the community feeds and houses them.
On the slideshow below I've posted some photos of the weaving process and my new table runner. Please take a look.
RSS Feed
