MayaMam Weavers & Our Second Industrial Sewing Machine

Our seamstresses continue growing in their skills. Even though we still experience regular outages of electricity, and our pedal sewing machines certainly are reliable, we are pleased to have a new industrial machine. These machines really are constructed to do excellent work, and we can continue to be proud of the quality of our work. Wait til you see our new collection of handbags.

MayaMam Weavers & More Emerald Green

Did you know that emerald green is Pantone's color of the year? We have been weaving with emerald green since we wove our first fabric after our initial training! This year we have an subtle emerald that has a white yarn woven in the warp, and our seamstresses have sewn it into full length aprons that go with our emerald and emerald and white diamond kitchen towels. (They also look great with our original emerald striped towels.) You can see that emerald is a favorite in Cajola, too.

MayaMam Weavers Proud Members of the Fair Trade Association

We are so pleased to have been accepted by the Fair Trade Association! Although we firmly believe in their principles and believe we have been practicing them since the very beginning, it is very satisfying to have passed their somewhat rigorous review process. So we can say confidently to all of your that yes, we are practicing the Principles of Fair Trade. As the Fair Trade Federation website explains: "Fair trade is an approach to business and to development based on dialogue, transparency, and respect that seeks to create greater equity in the international trading system. Fair trade supports farmers and craftspeople in developing countries who are socially and economically marginalized. These producers lack economic opportunity and often face steep hurdles in finding markets and customers for their goods. Fair trade is much more than just trade. At the core of the fair trade model is a direct, cooperative, and in-depth relationship between buyers and sellers that keeps all of the principles of fair trade at the forefront." And if you want to delve further, visit their website, particularly the page on fair trade principles: http://www.fairtradefederation.org/fair-trade-federation-principles We are honored to be recognized for our commitment, too.

MayaMam Weavers - What happens when you cross diamonds with stripes?

Well, we wanted to know! We have woven our diamond pattern in many different color variations, and we have woven innumerable stripes in different colors, but we wondered what would we get if we wove stripes into our diamonds? So that has been our most recent experiment. We are happy with the results, and will give you a couple of examples below. Now you have to watch to see what we do with the resulting fabric!

Here we are in April, 2013, now with 21 members. It has been a while since we updated our group photo and we have had growth and changes in our group. (One of our members was ill and is not in the photo). Caryn has been gathering statistics about us, so we want to share them here too. Of our 21 members, 16 are mothers and among us we have a total of 45 children. Most of us have one or two, but we have as many as 7 children in our families. Very sadly but typical of Cajola, 13 of us are single mothers. We are single mothers for various reasons...some of us are widows (one of our husbands was killed by the drug gangs when he was trying to cross the border), some of us have been discarded by our husbands or lovers. One of our member's husband has been in the U.S. for more than 15 years. Here in Guatemala we call that a "white widow". Our other "survey" was about education. Nine of our members never had the opportunity to go to school at all. One finished first grade, 3 finished 2nd grade, 5 finished 3rd grade, 1 finished 6th grade and one is studying in college. We are very proud of her. But the rest of us have been studying with Anadelmi, our literacy teacher at work, to be able to learn to read and write and do our math so we can keep track of our business!

MayaMam Weavers New Stripes

We have just designed two new stripe patterns to take advantage of this year's trending colors -- jade, mustard, and coral in one and jade (again) with violet in the other. Let us know what you think!

MayaMam Weavers & Ramapo College

We have the help of many hands in New Jersey this month. Professor Doerr's World Cultures class has been volunteering hours working for us. Students have been ironing, sewing on belt buckles, taking inventory, and updating our Etsy store. And guess what, just after Justin B. uploaded our wallets, we sold one! In the photo you can see Trish sewing on buckles and Justin working at the computer. Chjonte to ALL the students working so hard for us.