Quest for Fiber—Quechua Weaving

I visited Michell’s mill today where they have a museum, Mundo Alpaca, dedicated to alpaca fiber and the milling process. I will post more about that on another day, but today, I got a little infactuated with the traditional Quechua weaving demonstration. Each month Michell employs two women from fair-trade organizations in the Cusco area to demonstrate their craft for museum visitors.
I sat down beside this beautiful woman and watched her work for a little over an hour. We spoke little: I told her in my broken Spanish that my Spanish is very poor, and she replied that hers was too. Her principle language is Quechua. We laughed.


Other Blog Posts You May Find Interesting

Fiesta del la Candelaria in Arequipa
There was a group of women right next to me and one of them handed me her beautiful shawl and hat to put on. We laughed as I modeled for the camera.

Comprando en los Mercados y Tiendas
I really enjoy walking through the busy streets picking out the places where I want to shop. Each street seems to have its own specialty and once you know which streets cater to which items, then you know where to go.

My Favorite Peruvian Places & Experiences: Arequipa and Lake Titicaca
This post accompanies my LIVE YouTube broadcast on 28 March 2021 about my explorations of Arequipa and the Lake Titicaca area of Peru.
1 thought on “Quest for Fiber: Quechua Weaving”
Cathy,
Thanks. Reminds me of when I learned backstrap weaving from Mayan Indians in Guatemala in the winters of 1976 and 1978. It took me 4 hours to weave about 1 inch. I still have one of the weavings I created in San Lucas de Toliman, a town in the highlands of Guatemala. One of my teachers was the best multi-tasker I have ever seen in my life. She taught and oversaw 2 gringos weaving, cooked dinner, cared for her kids, took care of the chickens, talked to neighbors, tended the cooking fire, and more all at the same time. One time a chicken landed on and into the weaving I had been working on for 2 weeks. My panic disappeared when she shooed it away without missing a step on her other tasks. At the time of those trips in the 1970s, as I told you, I had hoped to go to South America to learn weaving there, but I had so much fun in Guatemala that I stayed in Central America. But I read back then that some of the best weaving in the world has been done in the highlands of South America.