Pausing Here and There

If this works….then this is a video of me weaving! Woot.

Also, I am leaving Xela in two days. I have mixed feelings about this, but mostly I am concentrating on concurring a raging cold that makes me sleep for 10 hours a night. Puchica!

Hello All! I’ve begun taking weaving classes at Trama, a womens weaving cooperative. I am in the process of making a “chalina” a scarf with spaces in it. Working on this project has made me realize how much time and effort goes into each piece of weaving that I have seen here. Guatemala is certainly known for its textiles, and while I have seen these gorgeous pieces of cloth, huiples (embroidered shirts), traje (the traditional cloth different for every region, and sometimes even for every aldea or village), rugs, bags, and so much more, I have felt too overwhelmed to want to buy any of it. I think that becoming a student (for a little breath of a time, at any rate) at this cooperative is such a healthier way for me in this instant to encounter, or get a better understanding of the process involved in making a piece of fabric.

First, I chose my colors and spent an hour or so making double stranded thread, by making balls out of thread I wrapped from these two circular spinny things. Then I spent another hour or two designing my scarf: wrapping the threads in a particular way around a wooden frame to create my design. Then I began to create the loom. The tension of the loom is formed by hanging the string between two wooden poles. One pole is hung from the ceiling and the other is attached to my back by a nylon belt, more or less. I then separated the strings in to bundles of twenty, turned the whole project around, and created the separation of strings that will allow me to weave it by separating every strand from each other with a nylon thread that I was wrapping around my hand. This took another 2 or so hours.

I begin to actually weave on Tuesday, wow! I suppose this does not sound exactly clear, but hopefully I will have some pictures soon to show all of you. In other news, I am learning the subjunctive tense…that other world of Spanish.

Here are some of my pictures from my travels during the holidays. Enjoy!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=19ltfkzb.bplbtr7&x=1&y=-657ifu