Blog
Jun 16
Two Simple Ways to Hang and Display Textiles
How many times have you taken your favorite textile and just pinned it up on the wall? Or grabbed a rod or stick, and folded the textile over it, securing it with a pin or tape to hold it in place? It’s easy enough to do. But it’s certainly not→ Read more
Jun 12
Men at Work: Knitting and Weaving in Peru
Chahuaytire man knitting a traditional multicolored alpaca/wool hat.→ Read more
Jun 05
All in the Family: Indian Male Textile Artisans
When we launched ClothRoads, our focus was to support women weaving cooperatives. And we do, mostly. But as we traveled the globe and met more artisans, it didn’t take long to realize the scope had to be expanded to include male artisans too. It became ever more apparent in India—a→ Read more
May 22
Shibori aka Tie-and-Dye
Last year, ikat was the big trend in fabric. This year, it’s shibori. The fashion world has adopted the name shibori to apply to any number of shaped-resist patterns. But shibori is a Japanese word encompassing various types of shaped resists created through the manipulation of fabric. Many textile-producing cultures→ Read more
May 15
An Indigo Blue Day
When packing for the recent Weave a Real Peace (WARP) conference, I realized that my bag was loaded with indigo-dyed or indigo-colored clothes. It reminded me of my navy grade-school uniform. And, as uniforms go, I felt reassured knowing that no matter what I wore, I would be coordinated in→ Read more
May 08
The People of the Loom, an Amuzgo Village in Guerrero, Mexico
Talk about a long-awaited day—we were about to see the finest backstrap-loom-woven brocade textiles produced in Mexico. We were also nearing the end of our fiber tour of coastal Oaxaca, traveling a tad into Guerrero and into the region where the Amuzgo people live, to the town of Xochistlahuaca, which→ Read more
Apr 30
One Strong Woman Heads Weaving Coop in Guatemala
Drive northwest from Cobán in the Altaverapaz region of Guatemala, up impossibly steep and winding roads, through stands of coffee and banana trees and lush semi-tropical foliage. Pass the agricultural cooperative community of Samac, and keep going up. Eventually you come to a wide spot in the road with a→ Read more
Apr 24
The Color Purple–Purpura Shell Dyeing in Oaxaca
Gone are the days when hundreds of Mixtec men scrambled over the rocky Oaxacan shoreline north of Huatulco to extract the milky liquid from the purpura patula, a marine mollusk. But thankfully to the persistence of a few people, the tradition of shellfish dyeing has survived, for these large mollusks→ Read more
Apr 17
The Beauty and the Bead in Mexico
So far on our Mexican journey, our days have been spent with spinners and weavers, mother-earth types, workers of the land–their bodies showing signs of their routine activities of backstrap weaving, picking cotton, tortilla making. But today this changes for we meet “The Beading Beauties”—at least that’s what I call→ Read more
Apr 10
The Son of a Shellfish Dyer Carves Gourds
There’s a point during traveling, especially in a land where customs, language, and terrain are different than one’s home, when the “home” life slips into the far recesses of the mind and the present envelopes you. This usually happens to me about 4-5 days into a trip. Today was that→ Read more
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