The Narrative Within

Oaxaca… weaving!

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Art for Housewives

Weaving and Oaxaca

Black Sabbatical

Artesena Zapoteca weaving, Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca

We joined a tour from the hostel today with the main aim of visiting Hierve El Agua (more on which to come) but ended up on a bit of a school trip to all sorts of interesting places.

Stop one was the village of El Tule, home to Arbol del Tule, the biggest tree in the world – in terms of circumference, anyway. Who knew! It’s about 60m all round, 42m high and approximately 2,000 years old. Also; impossible to photograph.

Next we trundled along to Teotitlan del Valle, a weaving village where you traditionally start in the family trade at the grand old age of six. It’s not a sweatshop set-up though, more family groups working from courtyards their homes to preserve an ancient skill – the place we stopped at, Artesena Zapoteca, certainly seemed to be a happy and profitable set-up anyway.

We had a quick masterclass…

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Posted in Crafts | Tagged Mexican textiles, Oaxaca, Weaving | Leave a comment

Traje Tipico

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Art for Housewives

So beautiful! Just looking at this Mayan traje makes me feel happy!

Aside from the article below, here are a couple of more interesting links: A Guatemalan woman weaves a textile on a backstrap loom + Maya Kotan collaborates with women in Mexico and Guatemala that create beautiful textiles using the backstrap loom, an ancient Mayan tradition.

Weaving in Chiapas + TRAJE EN GUATEMALA + Chiapas’ diversity

Mayan Threads

Traje Tipico

A Mayan woman, dressed in her traditional, hand-woven traje, looks on from afar as we demonstrate how to use our rocket stove at a SolCom sales campaign in Panajachel.

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Posted in Fashion | Tagged Chiapas, Huipiles, Mayan textiles, Weaving | 1 Comment

Mexico: The Hunt for the Perfect Huipil Begins

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Art for Housewives

Huipiles and San Cristobal…

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Huipil from Aguacatan #146

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Art for Housewives

Huipil with a design from the region of Aguacatan

Ixchel Textiles - Tejidos Ixchel

Aguacatan

Exquisite satin design from the region of Aguacatan. This beautiful huipil is highly influenced by the Mexican style of huipil with a white background and lots of orange and red colors. This huipil measures 33″ across the shoulders, 23″ from the neckline to the bottom edges. The neck opening is round and measures 6″ in diameter. The sides have been stitched closed to create armholes.

This white satin huipil is elegant with its hand-embroidered design around the collar and sleeves in brilliant colors of red, yellow, and orange accented with appliqué and machine stitching throughout the bodice and finished with a delicate lace trim around the bottom edge.

This unique huipil is in excellent used condition, with no signs of wear.

$85.00

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Posted in Fashion | Tagged Aguacatan, Huipiles, Mexican textiles | Leave a comment

Backstrap Weaving- Putting Down Roots and Weaving a Guatemalan Tree (Part 1)

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Art for Housewives

Many great fotos of backstrap weaving.

Backstrap Weaving

PUTTING DOWN ROOTS AND WEAVING A GUATEMALAN TREE (PART ONE)

It is exciting how much interest there is out there in backstrap weaving. Some people are attracted to all the beautiful pick-up patterns they have seen on ethnic textiles around the world many of which have been woven on backstrap looms. Others are attracted to the loom itself – its simplicity, portability and low cost. Some people are interested in the products they can produce using up their yarn stash with this inexpensive piece of equipment while others are more intrigued by the processes involved in the “slow cloth” it produces.

I think that some people may be unaware that most of the pick-up patterning techniques do not need to be limited to the