Handmade with Maya Wisdom

My name is Caryn Maxim. I live in NJ but spend 2 weeks of each month in Cajola, a Maya Mam community in the western highlands of Guatemala. (The Mam people are one of the 22 Maya ethnic groups in Guatemala.) I have been helping a group of women start a weaving cooperative, MayaMam Weavers, over the past years. I would like to share with you some of their work, some of their stories, some of their wisdom, as well as why fair trade -- or trading fairly -- matters.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

MayaMam Weavers and The Straight Road

One of the weaves we learned in our training we call "the straight road". Now we are seeing how we can use this weave in our next handbag collection. We are experimenting with various combinations of colors. The weave takes its dominant color from the weft, which in this case is black. Here you can see the difference between the white warp and the champagne warp. We are experimenting with some other colors, too, but you will have to wait a few months to see what the new bag collection looks like!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

MayaMam Weavers Make it to Cajola Town Hall

We are very pleased to report that the mayor requested 200 meters of our design "Cajola huipil" to use as curtains in all of the town hall. Not only is that a great order, but everyone in Cajola will be able to see our work. We originally designed this fabric to go on our ergonomic benches, but it was so popular that we have made it into towels and aprons, men's vests, women purchase the fabric to make into huipils, and now, curtains for Town Hall.

The picture shows Delfina cutting the fabric from the loom. And we were able to weave the entire 200 meters with only two warpings, using our new large warper. Now we are ready for anything!