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

Islas! Islas!*
I decided to take a little tourist jaunt to the island of Amantani in Lake Titicaca. You can purchase a tour from one of many agencies in Puno, but if you go to the pier in Puno and pay the captain directly for the trip and then pay your host family directly, the families receive more of the proceeds and don’t have to wait for the agency to send the money.

Quest for Fiber: Alpaca and Acrylic and Títeres
On my third day in Arequipa, Adela took me to Michell’s Fiber Mill. There is an outlet store there with all kinds of alpaca yarn at very good prices. Adjacent to the mill is Mundo Alpaca, a museum showing the process of preparing alpaca fleeces for market—both by hand and by machine.

I am in Love: Posada Santa Barbara
When I entered the restaurant I was overcome with emotion. I was the only one in the lodge eating that night and Juan had prepared a table just for me with white table cloth, tea service, a candle, and romantic Peruvian music in the background.
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.