Las Sanjuaneras huipiles are here! Below are 14 beautiful pieces. On July 29, 2020, I posted the first batch of huipiles and we sold-out on the same day! Thank you for supporting this incredible cooperative of weavers from San Juan Colorado, Jamiltepec, Oaxaca on the beautiful Costa Chica. You can read more about them by clicking on the link above.
SOLD OUT! Next group arriving in 3-4 weeks.
To Buy: Please email me normahawthorne@mac.com with your name, mailing address and item number. I will mark it SOLD, send you a PayPal link to purchase and add $12 for cost of mailing. Please be sure to select Send Money to Family and Friends!
Note: All measurements are in inches. Width is across the front (one side). Please double for circumference. Length is shoulder to hem. Most necks have an 8″ opening from shoulder to V.
First come. First served. First email in gets first choice.
These textiles are airy and gauzy. They drape beautifully. Even though they are wide, they are beautiful flowing works of art. In summer, wear with a tank top or bra. In winter, layer over a long-sleeve T-shirt or dress. The texture and colors are delicious, just like the natural dye materials used.
The cotton is all locally grown in small plots, hand-picked. The cotton is rolled inside palm mats and then beaten with sticks to soften it. Women sit cross-legged to take out the debris, pods and seeds, caressing each cotton ball as they work. A few women are experts using the malacate or drop-spindle used to make the thread. This is a laborious process. All the threads used in these garments are made this way.
To Buy: Please email me normahawthorne@mac.com with your name, mailing address and item number. I will mark it SOLD, send you a PayPal link to purchase and add $12 for cost of mailing. Please be sure to select Send Money to Family and Friends!
A back-strap loom is warped with this cotton. Then, the weft is woven into the warp threads. The designs are achieved using a weaving technique the Mexicans call bordado. These designs are not embroidered, but actually woven into the garment — a technique weavers know as supplementary weft. Often, as with some of these, the rayas or stripes add diversity to the design and an opportunity for color variegation.
Before the loom is warped, the weaver will decide on the primary color of the piece, along with what colors to use for the patterning. She will take the raw white native cotton and dip it into dye baths she has prepared herself from native plants. Weavers here use wild marigold (sempesuchitl or pericone), mahogany bark (caoba), oak bark (encino), avocado leaves and dried fruit (aguacate), indigo (añil), beets (betabel), guava (guayaba), nanche (a fruit), and baby banana pulp or banana tree bark.
To Buy: Please email me normahawthorne@mac.com with your name, mailing address and item number. I will mark it SOLD, send you a PayPal link to purchase and add $12 for cost of mailing. Please be sure to select Send Money to Family and Friends!
Sometimes these may be prepared in an iron pot to yield a dulled color or gray that results from the iron oxide chemical reaction. The plant world is in your huipil!
Thank you very much for your caring and support. We all appreciate it!
Please let me know if you have any questions. norma.schafer@icloud.com
Covid Diaries: A Lazy Writer’s Notebook
This is a test. To see if you are interested in reading and, if you wish, contributing to a blog journal/personal essays about life and experiences living through Covid Times. A chronicle, so to speak. It’s something I’m thinking of doing now. Probably not here, but in a new blog.
It’s the end of August. We have been at this for months. Five months. I know what I’ve been doing. Hiding. Searching out isopropyl alcohol. Fighting boredom and isolation. Sewing masks. Canceling tours. Trying to find meaning and purpose in the hours between waking up and going to sleep.
I’ve thought about writing in the last months but haven’t. What is there fresh to say? We are all doing our best to cope. Some of us have children or grandchildren at home. Some of us are out of work. Some of us have lost loved ones, family and friends to this virus. Some of us live alone. Some of us are just fine, just maybe.
Some of us have gained weight. Don’t sleep. Feel helpless. Others are finding purpose and beauty in butterflies and roses, a fresh air picnic under blue skies, growing a garden and harvesting its bounty. Yes, even a Zoom call with sister or son. Who knows the next time you will see them?
I’ve made the transition from being angry at everyone who goes mask-less and walks too close, to accepting that the only behavior I can change is mine. I walk. Sometimes I walk miles. It’s a great stress reliever. And, I encounter people on the city streets where I live. I make a wide detour as they come my way. Put my mask up.
I’m settling into this, but it still feels unsettling. And, it feels like its finally time to write about it.
What do you think? Do you want to talk about this? How are you doing? If we write it, will you read it?
Since I’m not in Oaxaca now, I don’t have that much to write about life there, so this Oaxaca Cultural Navigator blog has been short on content in the last few months.
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Posted in Oaxaca Mexico art and culture
Tagged chronicles, commentary, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative non-fiction, creative writing, diary, journal, personal essay, report