Category Archives: Clothing Design

Shop Mexico: The Artisan Sisters

Posted on Monday, May 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

Welcome to our new online store — Shop Mexico: The Artisan Sisters. We are sisters in real life, Norma Hawthorne and Barbara Beerstein.  We are passionate collectors and supporters of artists and artisans who express the creativity and vitality of Oaxaca and Mexico.  Textiles and folk art are our passion.  Because of this, we fall in love with people and what they create along our journey.  For us, it is as much about the people we connect with than what we are buying. Invariably, we usually come home with much more than what we need.

Today we feature huipils + blusas from Oaxaca, Chiapas and Puebla!

This is to your advantage!  Our prices our reasonable.  We ship fast.  We have already made the purchase and paid the artist. We believe in compensating people fairly and immediately for the beauty they create.  We offer the best quality because that is what we expect for ourselves.

Each week, starting today, we will list a few select pieces for sale on this blog!  Look for the Artisan Sisters in your inbox.  

Week 1 — Shop Mexico: The Artisan Sisters.

#1_51412, Collector Quality Huipil, Las Margaritas, Chiapas, handwoven, $195

Detail, Las Margaritas textile

#1_51412:  This extraordinarily detailed huipil from the Mayan indigenous village of Las Margaritas, in the Los Altos (highlands) of Chiapas, is a finely woven piece of highest quality cotton cloth created on the backstrap loom.  The design is integrated and woven into weft of the cloth; it is not embroidered.  Size is ample and would fit U.S. size 14-18 comfortably.  It has three webs across the front and three webs across the back, each securely hand-embroidered together.  The huipil is 29″ wide across the front armpit to armpit and 30″ long from the shoulder seam.

Contact us first to make sure the item you want is still available.  We accept PayPal and will send you an invoice after we calculate packing and shipping costs.

#2_51412: Blusa, Cuetzalan, Puebla, hand-embroidered bodice, $175


Detail of Cuetzalan blusa, #2_51412

#2_51412: Cuetzalan is in the Sierra Norte of the State of Puebla, four hours from the city of Puebla high in the mountains. The Artisan Sisters traveled there by public long-distance bus.  The women there embroider intricate patterns of wildlife and flowers onto panels of cotton which become part of washable cotton blouses that are gently gathered across the chest.  This blusa is a stunning, intricate design, with finely finished inside seams.  The bodice stitches are really tiny.  Every inch of the bodice and sleeve fabric is covered in handwork.  Neckline and sleeves have lovely crocheted trim. Width armpit to armpit across the front is 25″.  Length from shoulder seam to hem is 30.”  Neckline opening is 13″ wide.

#3_51412: Blusa, San Vicente Coatlan, $85

 

 

Detail, blusa, San Vicente Coatlan

#3_51412:  This Blusa (blouse) from San Vicente Coatlan, is one of the most beautiful I have seen in Oaxaca.  It has lots of punto de cruz cross stitch patterning in multi-colors covering the entire bodice, extending out the shoulders, and trimming the sleeve edge.  The back collar is also embellished with fine detail. I don’t know how they do it.  The gathers are all done by hand, too.  This is a KNOCK-OUT.  Width from armpit to armpit across the front is 27″ wide.  Length from shoulder seam to hem is 34″ long.  Sleeves are 20″ long from the shoulder seam.  Embroidered panels sewn onto manta cotton (washable).

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Posted in Clothing Design, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Textiles, Tapestries & Weaving, Travel & Tourism

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Felted Fashion Workshop: Making Wearable Art Oaxaca Style with Wool, Silk and Cotton

Posted on Thursday, May 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

For hands-on fun, escape winter and come to Oaxaca from February 4 to 11, 2013.  Together, during this one-week workshop residency, we will be immersed in the textile culture of Oaxaca to create naturally-dyed felted fabric combining wool, silk and cotton that can be hand or machine stitched into an indigenous clothing design of your choice.  Our experts, textile and fiber artist-clothing designer Jessica de Haas, from Vancouver, B.C., Canada and Eric Chavez Santiago from Oaxaca, Mexico, will show you how!

Jessica owns the clothing design company Funk-Shui and is an award-winning, internationally known fiber artist and teacher.  She recently completed an artist residency in Oaxaca, and taught and exhibited at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca.  See her website for bio and designs.

Eric Chavez Santiago, founding director of education at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca, is a weaver and natural dye expert.  He has taught natural dyeing techniques  in Oaxaca and at  U.S. universities and museums since 2006.

First, working with Eric in his family’s home studio in Teotitlan del Valle, we will dye and over-dye wool roving with natural materials:  cochineal, indigo, wild marigold, pomegranates and other plants to achieve the colors you will use in your piece(s).  We will learn about mordant processes to fix the dye and dye extraction to create over 10 different colors.  Dye recipes are included!

Then, working with Jessica in the courtyard of our B&B, we will felt our naturally dyed wool fiber on silk or loosely woven cotton or muslin, making a durable and beautiful fabric.  After your fabric is dry, you will have the option to cut and sew it into one of several indigenous Oaxaca styles:  the huipil (tunic), the blusa (blouse), rebozo (shawl), boufanda (scarf) or quechequemitl (cape).  Here is a piece from Jessica’s collection that you might like!

We give you a pattern book to choose your design! Below is a sample pattern for a quechquemitl.

This workshop is for all levels of experience!  You do not have to be an artist to attend.  We welcome beginners who have never worked in hand felting and more advanced fiber artists. This is a perfect residency for students, teachers and artists who may want to explore a different medium, too.

We will provide you with patterns for the basic indigenous designs that can be adjusted to fit.  If you want to contemporize them, we can help you tweak and make minor adjustments. If you have sewing or pattern drafting experience and want to experiment on your own, you are welcome to work on an independent design project after your fabric is made.

We will be based in the weaving village of Teotitlan del Valle where for generations families have been creating wool textiles.  During our time together, we will go on local field trips to meet and talk with weavers who work with natural dyes and weave fabric for wearable art as well as sturdier floor and wall tapestries.  We will see examples of the types of garments that can be created from the felted fabric we make.

Participant materials to bring (preliminary):

  • wool roving—either merino or corriedale, 2 lbs. or 1 kg. minimum
  • silk, cotton, and/or muslin—3-4 meters (4.37 yards) minimum
  • beads, sequins, buttons, ribbons, embroidery thread and other embellishments

Note: The materials listed are sufficient to make one garment. If you wish to prepare more than one piece of dyed felted fabric, you are welcome to bring more materials.  However, it is likely you will only be able to complete one finished piece during the time allotted.

Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC will provide, included in your registration fee:

  • all instruction
  • 7 nights lodging
  • 7 breakfasts
  • 7 dinners
  • all dye materials
  • pattern booklet
  • dye recipes
  • sewing machine to share, needles, thread

Workshop is limited to 8 participants 

Daily Workshop Schedule:

Arrive Saturday, February 4, Depart Sunday, February 11 — 7 nights, 8 days

  • Day 1, Saturday, February 4, arrive and settle into your bed and breakfast posada in Teotitlan del Valle (we send directions)
  • Day 2, Sunday, February 5, natural dye workshop to prepare wool roving
  • Days 3-5, Monday-Wednesday, February 6-8, make the felted fabric on silk, cotton or muslin
  • Days 6-7, Thursday-Friday, February 9-10, create your pattern, sew and embellish the garment
  • Day 7, Friday, February 10, evening fashion show and reception
  • Day 8, Saturday, February 11, depart
(Preliminary daily schedule subject to modification.  Start and end dates will not change.)

 

Workshop Fee:  $1,365 per person shared room and bath, double occupancy. Single occupancy with private bath, add $300.  Most travel programs of this type and length cost more than twice as much!

Optional Add-ons: 

Option 1:  Arrive a day early, on Friday, February 3, and take a Zapotec cooking class on Saturday, February 4 with Reyna Mendoza Ruiz.  Includes one night lodging, breakfast, lunch, cooking class and recipes.  $110 USD each.

Option 2:  Day 8-10, Saturday-Monday, February 11-13.  Add-on two more nights and visit fly-shuttle manta cotton cloth weaving studios and archeological site on Saturday in San Pablo Villa de Mitla along with a mezcal tasting at a boutique mezcaleria in Matatlan.  On Sunday, visit the Tlacolula regional tianguis market to see handcrafted aprons and rebozos.  $245 USD each (lunch on your own; includes two breakfasts and dinners, transportation and guided visits).  Depart Monday, February 13.

About Our Workshops, Retreats and Programs.  We offer educational programs that are hands-on, fun, culturally sensitive, and offer you an immersion experience.   Our workshop leaders are experts in their field, knowledgeable, have teaching experience and guide you in the learning process.  Our goal is to enhance your knowledge while giving you time to explore and discover.

About Lodging and Accommodations. To keep this trip affordable and accessible, we stay in a local posada operated by three generations of women — grandmother, mother, daughter — all great cooks! The food is all housemade (including the tortillas), safe to eat and delicious.  Vegetarian options are available.

Accommodations are clean and basic.  Shared baths are across the courtyard. (Bring flip-flops and flashlight.)   The base price of the trip includes shared room and bath; single supplement with private bath is available (add $300).   Please indicate your preference.

Your registration fee does NOT include airfare, taxes, admissions to museums and archeological sites, gratuities, travel insurance, liquor/alcoholic beverages, some meals and some transportation.

Deposits, Reservations and Cancellations.  A 50% deposit ($683) is required to guarantee your spot.  The final payment for the balance due (including any supplemental costs) shall be paid by December 15, 2012.  We prefer Payment with PayPal.  We will be happy to send you an invoice.

If cancellation is necessary, please notify us in writing by email.   After December 15, 2012, no refunds are possible; however, we will make every possible effort to fill your reserved space.  Your registration is transferable to a substitute.  If you cancel before December 15, we will refund 50% of your deposit.  We strongly recommend that you take out trip cancellation, baggage, emergency evacuation and medical insurance before you begin your trip, since unforeseen circumstances are possible.

To register or for questions, contact:  normahawthorne@mac.com  I am happy to set up a Skype call with you, too.  Skype name:  Oaxacaculture

 

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Posted in Clothing Design, Cultural Commentary, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Textiles, Tapestries & Weaving, Workshops and Retreats

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Indigo Dye Workshop: It’s Called Shibori, Not Tie Dye

Posted on Saturday, April 28, 2012 | 4 Comments

Actually, using resist dye technique using indigo to create patterns and designs on cotton is called shibori, tritik, amarra or plangi(depending upon country of origin).  It’s not the hippie dippie 60′s tie dye that’s been reincarnated on beach blanket bingo T-shirts.  It’s high fashion wearable art.  Not long ago, I saw an Eileen Fisher designer label Made in Japan shibori design on a finely woven cotton scarf dyed with indigo at a Nordstrom selling for over $100USD.  The technique is universal.

Norma's Indigo Dyed Shibori Napkins -- A Gift for Jacob and Michelle

As frequently as once per month, Eric Chavez Santiago teaches a hands-on indigo dye workshop for people of all ages at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca.  At a recent workshop, a mother, father and baby sister accompanied a six-year-old who made a fish design on a white cotton T-shirt.  Dad was right by his side and the learning was a fun family adventure.  Other participants included local artists, university design program students, and visiting tourists.

  

Indigo can be used to dye cotton, wool, alpaca, silk, linen and the fiber of the agave plant.  Some women in Oaxaca villages even use indigo to dye their hair.  Dyeing with indigo is all about chemistry.  Cellulose fibers such linen, cotton and agave absorb less indigo to get an intense color than do protein fibers of silk and wool.  Said another way, it takes less indigo to dye cotton than wool.  That’s why, we are using 100% cotton for the workshop.  Polyester blends just won’t work because indigo saturates only the surface of the fiber, not it’s core.

Look for Felted Fashion Oaxaca Style, coming in February 2013.                                                                                It includes dyeing wool roving, silk, and cotton with natural materials and  making your fabric into luxurious scarves, blouses, wraps.   Contact me to get on the mailing list for complete course description.  Instructors are clothing designer Jessica de Haas, Vancouver, B.C., and Eric Chavez Santiago, Oaxaca, Mexico.  Limited to 8 participants.

 

The process is fairly simple.  First, we rinse the white fabric (I dyed white, handwoven cotton napkins from the Amuzgo tribe) in clear water to soften it.  Then, we squeeze out all the moisture and make our design.

1. To make the shibori design, you can make accordian folds and then tie this together with rubber bands or with string.   You can drape cloth over marbles or beans, securing them with string or a rubber band.  You can whirl the fabric and then tie it with string or rubber bands.

 

2. To make the tritik design, you use a needle and thread to create a very specific pattern, folding the cloth and then sewing through it.

 

3. It probably takes about an hour to make the design.  Tie a lead string onto your fabric so you can easily fish it out of the water.

4.  Dip the folded and/or sewn fabric into the dye pot for 20 minutes.  Be careful to immerse it gently into the solution.  Do not stir or disturb in any way.  Pull the piece out of the dye pot with the lead string.

5.  Hang on a line from the string until the fabric changes from green-yellow to blue, for 15-20 minutes.

  

6.  Repeat two more times.

7.  Remove the rubber bands or thread.

8.  Rinse well in water.  Then, dip in vinegar water for 5 minutes to set the dye, soften the fabric and remove any of the alkaline residual and garlicky odor

9.  Let hang to dry.

  

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Making Indigo Dye in Santiago Niltepec, Oaxaca

Posted on Friday, April 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

The market for organic indigo dye is making a come-back in Oaxaca as more textile artists and weavers are choosing to work with the natural plant material.  Today, the state of Oaxaca produces about 100 kilograms of añil or indigo each year.  Up until about three years ago, the indigo dye making process had almost died out in Oaxaca.

 

To stimulate the economic development of indigo as a crop, the state government has made investments to help the producers develop new markets.  The Museo Textil de Oaxaca gift shop sells small bags of indigo along with “how to” DVD’s and recipes. I learned this and a lot more during the indigo dye workshop I participated in at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca, where about 15 people gathered to learn shibori and tritik dye techniques using indigo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The people in Santiago Niltepec, on the coast of Oaxaca near Juchitan on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, pick the wild plant, chop it — stems and leaves — and put it in a fermentation bath for at least twelve hours (sometimes as much as thirty-six hours) to prepare the dye.  Each family has its own recipe for making the indigo paste.  Most use rocks to keep the plants submerged below the water to make sure that they oxidize completely and yield the deepest color.

The process is ancient, thousands of years old.  The plant material decomposes and collects at the bottom of the large vats as a thick paste.  It’s then strained to separate any sediment.  The result is a highly saturated, concentrated product.  It takes about 200 kg of plants to produce 1 kg of indigo dye.  It is then dried and becomes rock-hard.  To then use it, it must be pulverized into a fine powder.  Traditionalists in Oaxaca use a metate or mortar and pestle.  Others take the faster route by using an electric coffee grinder.

Indigo can’t be dissolved in pure water.  It has to be dissolved in a highly alkaline solution with a 10-11 pH, and free of oxygen.  Eric Chavez Santiago, director of education at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca, told us that there are several ways to manipulate the chemistry by using either sodium hydrosulfide (highly caustic) or the more organic fructose crystalline.  French botanist and dyer Michel Garcia is now experimenting with using mango skins and fructose successfully.

Eric says it is important to be patient when dyeing with indigo.  You can use the dye within thirty minutes after preparing it, but it often takes three or four days of fermentation to get the deepest shades of blue.

During the workshop, we dipped our white cotton material at least twice for 20 minutes each time, to intensify the color.  Some people even dye their hair with indigo!

Tapestry Weaving and Natural Dye Workshop this summer 2012!  Don’t miss it.

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Posted in Clothing Design, Food & Recipes, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Oaxaca rug weaving and natural dyes, Textiles, Tapestries & Weaving, Workshops and Retreats

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How to Make a Wool Felt Flower

Posted on Sunday, April 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

Making a flower out of felted wool fiber is a simple art process that I learned during a workshop with Jessica de Haas, Canadian clothing designer, at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca.  No one else wanted to cut into their handmade felt cloth, but I took scissors in hand and cut away.  Here was my reward!

Scrunched and dried felted wool flowers

Felted Fashion Workshop: Making Wearable Art Oaxaca Style, Feb. 4-11, 2013

Instructions:

1.  First, I made a paper pattern.  I cut four circles.  Circle 1 is 6″ in diameter.  Circle 2 is 5″ in diameter.  Circle 3 is 4″ in diameter.  Circle 4 is 3″ in diameter.

2.  Then, I pinned each circle to the felt and cut.

3.  Starting with the largest circle, fold it in half and cut into the fold about 1/2″ on both sides.  Fold it in half the other way and make another cut about 1/2″ on both sides.  Keep doing this until you end up with 16 “petals.”  Trim each of the petals so that they look like a petal!

4.  Continue the same process with each of the remaining circles.

Flat felted wool flower before sewn together and scrunched. My petals are misshapen because the scissors wasn't very sharp! Get a sharp scissors.

 

5.  Stack the circles on top of each other, largest one on the bottom, smallest one on top.

6.  With needle and thread, sew the layers together in the center.

7.  Cut a 1″ to 1-1/2″ circle and place it in the center of the flower and sew it on, leaving an opening big enough to stuff tiny wool scraps into the center to look like a button.  (Did you know the center of a flower is called a stigma and in Spanish it’s Corolla?)

8.  Squeeze the flower from bottom so that the petals form a distinctive shape.

I made my flower when it was damp, so when I squeezed, it crunched up and took a 3-dimensional shape instead of a flat pancake (as shown above).  If you like, you can wet it completely in hot water, squeeze the water out gently with two hands, and then squeeze to shape.  Let air dry in the sun or on top of a clothes dryer.

9.  Sew to a hat or pin on a jacket or make a choker necklace out of it.

Supplies list:

  • A few sheets of paper (can be recycled printer paper)
  • A good, sharp scissors
  • Straight pins
  • Needle and thread
  • Scrap wool for button center (or use a button)
  • Optional: embellish with sequins or seed beads or random embroidery design

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