Making Plans...

The image above is part of a drawdown of a design I call "Azteca," which refers to the indigenous people who founded the Aztec empire as well as to their culture. They flourished in central Mexico from 1300 to 1521 C.E., founding their capitol, Tenochtitlan, on the site that is now Mexico City. To me, the warm, vivid colors and the geometric motifs have the feeling of Aztec art. 

Architectural model, Mezcala, 1st-8th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art

(Public domain)

Coronation stone of Moctezuma, Xocoyotzin, 1503, Art Institute of Chicago

I'm thinking of weaving this pattern to create a tunic that derives from the art of the traditional Azteca women's tunic known as a huipil (pronounced wee-PEEL), worn by indigenous women from central Mexico to Central America. The garment's history predates Spanish colonization, with designs and weaving traditions pass down through the centuries. These designs represent a complex tradition of communication, with weaving and embroidery symbolizing the wearer's ethnic community and identity. Traditionally, huipils were woven in cotton on backstrap looms, such as the one seen below.

As for my plans for this modern-day huipil: I aim to weave it in 16/2 cotton and rayon/bamboo on my 32-shaft Louet Megado, with a width in the reed of 24.75 inches. I figure this gives me plenty of width to weave a rectangular shape that can be folded in half to fit an average-sized woman. Further, I want to decorate it with an inkle-woven band or two, maybe adding beads, giving it a look similar to the images below -- which are, by the way, from the wardrobe of Frida Kahlo.

In fact, I found a "Frida Huipil" sewing pattern on the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Here's the link: Frida Huipil V&A.

The design is a 4-color parallel threading, based on a design line that is basically Ms and Ws.

The tieup makes it a Jin pattern, and the treadling is an advancing point twill (with tabby shots in between the pattern shots, in keeping with Jin).

I would like to make this more of a garment for show rather than an everyday piece, so I may embellish it with beads and -- get this, real gold thread! (It's actually gold-plated, I guess you'd say, not solid gold, because that would be unaffordable.)

There is so much that weaving has to say, non-verbally but beautifully, to celebrate other cultures, traditions, and beliefs. Textiles awaken us to our connections and our individuality as well.

Now, off to the warping reel!

Thanks for reading.

The Huipil de la Malinche, one of the oldest huipils 

ever found, carbon-dated to the 1700s.

Bhutanese Textiles with Wendy Garrity -- at the New Weaving and Fiber Arts Center!

A detail of Bhutanese kushutara weaving

Luckily, for those of us who love textiles, we can travel the world without leaving our homes. Last week at the new Weaving and Fiber Arts Center (more on that later), Australian Wendy Garrity took us to Bhutan. 

Her presentation focused on the gorgeous fabrics known as kushutara, woven on backstrap looms by Bhutanese women in their homes. Pictured above: Garrity at the start of her presentation  -- before we remembered to turn the lights out! Her blog is called "Textile Trails."

Kushutara (supplementary weft brocades, also spelled kushuthara and kishutara) resemble embroidery but are hand woven -- often on looms that are built into the walls of the weaver's home. They have a discontinuous weft, as you see in the details below (front and back of the same fabric, respectively).

And they are gorgeous! Weavers use continuous weft-pattern designs called sapma and discontinuous weft-pattern designs called tingma. Garrity explains tingma this way: "The discontinuous supplementary weft patterning consists of sapma (inlay) and thrima (twining)." These techniques are all woven in brilliantly-colored silk in seemingly random color palettes. The results are what Garrity refers to as "eye candy."

So here, for your viewing pleasure, is some of the eye candy she brought along to show us.

As so often with textiles, photos don't do justice to the real pieces. The work in this last photo, for instance, has an eloquence and complexity that is hard to convey secondhand -- mainly because the full yardage in all its glory has a tremendous variety of colors and patterns. For this reason, Garrity urged us to view all of her fabrics from a distance as well as up close.

And I have yet to mention the new, larger home for the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center. What an expansive, bright, loom-filled site! Here are a few photos, to give you an idea.

The new location, just around the corner from the old one

Looms to the left of you... 

Looms to the right... 

And table looms at just the right height!

This fall, at the new location, I will be teaching beginning weaving and advanced beginning weaving (kind of a contradiction in terms, but you get the idea) as well as a natural-dyeing workshop. For more information, you can check out the courses as soon as the new listings are posted, which should be by mid-August.

Thanks for reading!