One of my favorite Andean textiles is the humble potato sack, or costal. It’s deeply traditional, handsome, and almost indestructible. I first saw costales in use when I visited the very high village of Accha Alta in 2005. The area is known for the best and most varied potatoes, but the terrain is so steep […]
26
Apr
Apr
I’m feeling a tad guilty that April is National Poetry Month and here we are in the final stretch, having done nothing to celebrate. Over the years, we’ve often found ways to join text with textile in poetic ways. For International Women’s Day a few years ago, Marge Piercy’s “For Strong Women” set a meaningful […]
25
Jan
Jan
My friendship with Cynthia Lecount Samaké, author of our new A Textile Traveler’s Guide to Peru & Bolivia, has been a long and winding road, much like the tours she leads to far flung places all over the world. It started in the early 1990s when Interweave, which I then headed, bought rights to her […]
12
Oct
Oct
In our very first Thrums Books textile giveaway, you have a chance to win one of my treasured Peruvian scarves. I bought this alpaca scarf while I was working in Peru with Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez on her book Secrets of Spinning, Weaving, and Knitting in the Peruvian Highlands. It’s a beauty of a scarf, isn’t it? It makes […]
13
Jul
Jul
I just drove down to Santa Fe to attend the Fifteenth annual International Folk Art Market. It’s always a great time to connect with fiber friends and especially our authors as many are also artisan participants, volunteers, or translators. (Look for a full recap in next week’s blog.) Nilda Callanaupa Alvarez of the Center for Traditional […]
04
Aug
Aug
This week we are thrilled to welcome Keith Recker, founder and editor of HAND/EYE magazine and international trend and color forecaster, as our special guest author. Keith shares his thoughts about our new book Secrets of Spinning, Weaving, and Knitting in the Peruvian Highlands. Enjoy his wonderful perspective. Thank you, Keith! Textiles–A Way of Life […]
24
Mar
Mar
Coming Together It’s an interesting word, Tinkuy. (Say tin-kooie). While it means a “coming together” in Quechua, it means more than that. It means (among other untranslatable things) coming together like rushing streams converging in foaming eddies to create a bigger river. There’s a lot of energy implied in the word. The first Tinkuy, in […]
03
Feb
Feb
Go Dog, Go by P.D. Eastman was a strong favorite for bedtime reading in my family a generation back (that is, when my kids were little). The girl dog and boy dog keep crossing paths, and she always asks, “Do you like my hat?” And he always answers (except at the very end), “No, I […]
02
Dec
Dec
Exactly three years ago, Thrums Books released Beyond the Stones of Machu Picchu. It was such a pleasure working with the author, Libby Van Buskirk, who had deeply researched the folk tales and folkways of the Peruvian highlands during her many years of travel in that country. And the illustrator, Angel Callañaupa Alvarez, is a […]
16
Sep
Sep
I’ve been reading a terrific book called I Contain Multitudes about microbes and their pervasive role in all of creation, not to mention my own gut. So a recent story in the New York Times immediately caught my eye: “Could Ancient Remedies Hold the Answer to the Looming Antibiotic Crisis?” As I dug into the story, […]
