A New Style Heddle

For a long time we have wanted to learn some new weaving designs. Although we have been experimenting on our own, we have been looking for a master weaver to help us. This week we have begun to work with Don Oscar Boj, of Quetzaltenango. He will be working with us over the next few months helping us expand our understanding and improve our weaving. Don Oscar is teaching us the names of the parts of the loom in Spanish while we are teaching him the words in Mam. The very first thing we did was change from our string heddles to Texsolv polyester heddles. The Texsolv heddles are not common in Guatemala so we feel like pioneers.

Designing Huipils for Cajola

We are working on designing some new fabrics to sew into huipiles – the top part of our traditional clothes – to sell in our market here in Cajola. We are weaving in magenta with black vertical stripes in cotton, a stylish take off on our traditional red wool with horizontal stripes. But we plan to change the weave half way through to a more complex structure and incorporating more colors. You will have to wait to see what comes next!

Our New Gossamer Scarves in Rainbow Stripes on Champagne

Although we did learn this weave structure in our original training, we have only just “revived” it to weave these gorgeous lightweight scarves! We know they will be popular because our recent visitors from San Juan College, New Mexico scooped up 32 of them from our first weaving! Although our visitors were most interested in our new preschool, they were able to spend a bit of time with us and learn a bit about our weaving and our work together as a group.

MayaMam Weavers -- Look at Us!

We have a new friend, Murphy Woodhouse, who is an immigration activist and a photographer. He has been in nearby Quetzaltenango for a few months working on a project about the abuse our family members and friends receive from the US immigration authorities when they are detained at the border. He has been visiting us in Cajola because so many Cajolenses -- nearly 40% -- are in the US, and so many of them experience the abuse when they are detained. Murphy he took some time off to photograph us at work. We will be using some of his photos on our website (still in process). But here is one special photo we want to share with you ahead of time!

MayaMam Weavers Debut in Cajola Sunday Market

We aren’t sure why it has taken us this long, but last Sunday we set up a table in our local market. We had a place alongside the main square, which is a bit outside of the main market, but still a good place to start. We started off by offering some of our fabrics by the meter, our striped and embroidered wristbands, a completely new style of scarves, new colors of shawls, and our messenger bags. We didn’t actually sell too much this week but lots of people stopped by and promised to come next Sunday with their money in order to buy something. To prepare for the market, we have been working with our literacy teacher in how to fill out the sales sheet and calculate the sales and expenses so we know we have the correct amount of cash. We will be participating in the market every Sunday for the next weeks, then we will evaluate to see if we want to continue in Cajola or we want to go to the nearby huge market in San Juan Ostuncalco.