Velvet On My Mind

I used to travel to Chicago on business several times a year, and every time I squeezed in a couple of hours at the Chicago Art Institute. Not for the wonderful Impressionist collection, or the Picasso room, or even for Edward Hopper, but for the 14th century collection of armor and weapons. Here’s why: There […]

The Hat in the Hat

In our culture today, it’s most likely a felt or straw Stetson or a baseball cap, that thing men put on their heads. (In my father’s time, it was the ubiquitous fedora.) In Peru, it’s a knitted chullo, often topped with a brimmed felt hat. One for warmth, one for sun protection. The knitted chullos […]

Weaving the Universe in Chiapas

Chiapas is a mystery and a land of contradictions. Geographically, it ranges from the deep, sweaty Lacandon rainforest to the high, cold, encircling Sierra Madres. Spiritually, it’s traditional Roman Catholicism with holy mass one day, and chicken sacrifices in the corner of the church the next. It’s European saints’ effigies dressed in layers of handwoven […]

To Weave a New Pattern–Lao Style

Our guides in this week’s travel adventure are Joshua Hirschstein and Maren Beck who began traveling through Southeast Asia fifteen years ago with their 9 and 11-year-old sons. After two family trips in Thailand, Vietnam, and later, Laos, Joshua and Maren wanted to transform these extended family adventures into a new lifestyle, a new way […]

Weaving in Morocco: Our Craft, Our Calling

Morocco

Last week, publisher Linda Ligon transported us to the highlands of Bolivia and Peru. This week, I’m taking us on a journey to Morocco. After my first visit there with author Susan Schaefer Davis, I described it as a place of “Layers and layers of flavor, color, and light, distilled into a single joy.” I […]

Crafting with Grace

Accha Alta Accha Alta is a small community high in the Peruvian Andes. To arrive there, you drive up steep switchbacks on a single-track road, past ancient Inca storage structures, and alpacas foraging on almost nonexistent vegetation. Or you walk. In spite of, or maybe because of, their remoteness and sparse lifestyle, the villagers of […]

A Clan of Weaving Elders

Elders

When Lynda Pete or Barbara Ornelas greet you with the naming of their clans, they’re greeting you on behalf of their extended family: grandmothers, aunts, children, grandchildren. Their clans wrap them in the warm blanket of their history and culture, their lives. I’ve been thinking about the Elder women of their clans who appear in […]

Wrapped in the Flag

How many national flags in the world? It depends on whom you ask. Maybe 194, or 197, and it can change at any moment as national governments and boundaries rearrange themselves. Add to that state and regional flags, organizational flags, holiday flags—the list is endless. In every case, a flag is just a rectangle of […]

Weaving Is Life

AroundtheWorld

Do handknitted mittens turn away the evil eye in Estonia? Well, maybe. How do you spin pineapple fiber into thread for piña cloth? You don’t. (You just tie single fine strands together.) Can you make Miao shiny cloth without pigs’ blood? Yes you can. Egg whites are an option, or if you’re vegan, maybe yellow […]

Pijbil Weaving in Guatemala–Elegant in Every Way

Enjoy this story of Amalia Guë, a beautiful, steadfast earth mother of a woman, featured in Deborah Chandler’s Traditional Weavers of Guatemala: Their Stories, Their Lives. I cannot forget visiting her six years ago when we were working on the book: shafts of sunlight coming through cracks in the walls to illuminate the fine work […]

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