The Many Colors of Cajola

If you have been following along with our blog, you know that we are experimenting with new colors in our weaving. But colors aren’t new to us -- we live our lives immersed in color! You probably know how colorful our clothing is, and you know about our weaving. And now we want to show you that even our buildings and our houses are full of color.

Here is a photo of our town hall, with the gazebo that is in the middle of the main spare on the right. (Our community police are on the left.) Every year the town paints the town hall a new color in time for our annual fiesta, which is coming at the beginning of May. While the town hall is a bright aquamarine right now, for the last year it has been bright pink.

And here is an example of houses on one street in the center.

And we chose this last photo to show you that you can find orange not only in our weaving but on our houses, too! Maybe you are interested in knowing that houses like this one have been built by someone who is working in the United States. Most people here in Cajola can’t earn enough money to build such a house – so the houses remain empty until their owner returns from the United States.

The wisdom of our ancestors was recorded in their clothing

Last month we talked about the meanings of different symbols. You can find many of these symbols in our weaving, though the interpretations of the symbols change from town to town (like our languages).

But did you know that you can trace these symbols back to our ancestors? Below is a photo of lintel 24 at Yaxchilan. The woman’s dress has motifs of squares, transformed into diamonds, that refer to the relation among the universe, the earth, and humanity. You can find this motif abundantly woven into many of our traje today in all of highland Guatemala (and on some of our own work as well).

Our Handwoven Kitchen Towels Are Popular in Xela!

Last November we began to sell some of our products in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala’s second largest city and only 40 minutes from us in Cajola. You can find our products in the lovely gift shop of the Hotel Villa Don Andres, located very close to Quetzaltenango’s Central Park. (Quetzaltenango is commonly known as “Xela”.) But the clients of Doña Ana Lucia are Quetzaltecas, not tourists, and they really love our towels! Most of our products have been designed with the U.S. market in mind, it is such a lovely surprise to find them appreciated here in Guatemala!

Getting tangerine into our work

Since we learned that tangerine is the “color of the year” we have been having fun incorporating it in our work. We wanted to create a completely new stripe that can be used for a new handbag collection. Looking around us we found a servilleta – the napkins we use for everything, for wrapping tortillas to stay warm, for carrying tamales to another family, for wiping our hands – that had a tangerine stripe in it. Below you can see a photo of that servilleta, and then you can the new striped fabric that it inspired. (But when you see the actual handbags, you will see we have exchanged the white for a light blue…)

Learning about Yarn Dyeing

As you remember, we are learning about color trends. And of course we have a long tradition of weaving with color. We invited our main yarn vendor to give us training about dyes so we can understand how the process works, how to choose the best process for our products, and how to do a better job of planning. (We are learning to do a better job of planning in all areas of our work!)

Luis de Leon is the owner of Hilos Dalcy, where we buy nearly all of our yarn. He told us the name of his business came from the initials of his children! He showed us the three types of dyes that he uses, and explained a bit about each process, how long it takes, and the characteristics of each kind of dye. Because we are making products of a high quality, we generally use his highest quality (and most expensive) dye. It gives the best-looking results, we can get the hues that we want, the colors are guaranteed, and it comes with an internationally-recognized certification. So, even though it is the most expensive, we see that it is the correct type of dye to use in our work.

We asked about organic cotton and found out it is really very scarce here in Guatemala (at the present…)

We were very glad for the opportunity to learn about this very important part of our work, and we confirmed for ourselves that the vender we had selected is the right one for us to collaborate with. Originally we had selected him because he can put the yarn onto cones, which saves us an enormous amount of time in preparing our yarn for weaving, but now we understand his commitment to serving his clients and having a successful long term relationship with them.