Susie’s Regrets Sale: Three Fine Rebozos (Shawls)
Susie’s traveled with Oaxaca Cultural Navigator to Tenancingo de Degollado to explore the ikat weaving and rebozo making culture of Mexico. She has since returned with us to other parts of Mexico, including Chiapas and the Oaxaca Coast. Meanwhile, on that trip she picked up a few beautiful pieces she hasn’t yet worn and after seeing […]
Summer Wraps from Mexico for Sale
In my getting ready to go back to Oaxaca from Durham, NC, I’m going through the boxes of my collection to decide what I’m ready to send off from my house to yours! My departure date is June 22, so please, if you are interested in making a purchase, let me know immediately, and I’ll […]
Let’s Go Shopping: Eleven Mexican Shawls, Scarves, Rebozos for Sale
Rebozos are part of Mexican female identity and culture. Frida wore them. So did the women of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920. Aristocrats from Spain loved their shoulder coverings as they strolled the Alameda. Indigenous women still rely on them to swaddle and carry infants. Women in El Norte (USA and Canada) find them comforting on […]
Rebozo Weaving Technology in Mexico: How to Make an Ikat Shawl
On our textile study tour to Tenancingo de Degollado, Estado de Mexico (State of Mexico) we met ikat rebozo weavers, called reboceros, who use up to 6,400 cotton warp threads on a back strap loom. About 3,000 to 5,000 cotton warp threads are used on the fixed frame pedal floor loom. The technology is simple. […]
Pop-Up Sale: Oaxaca Quechquemitl, Mexico Stylish Scarf/Poncho
This pop-up clothing sale features the indigenous Mexico short poncho or triangular bodice cover-up called a quechquemitl in the Nahuatl language, used by pre-Hispanic women throughout the country. It’s my favorite accessory and that’s why I have too many of them! Slip one over your head, and your shoulders and bodice are covered beautifully, even […]
3-Day Pop Up Huipil Sale: Mexican Folk Art Dresses
These textiles — dresses and blouses — huipiles and blusas — are from my personal collection. I’ve decided it’s time to send them on to others who will also appreciate their handwoven and embroidered beauty. If you buy by Wednesday, March 30, I will bring your purchase with me to the USA and mail to […]
Tenancingo Rebozos: Pop-Up Sale Online
It’s easy to get carried away and fall in love with ikat cotton rebozos in Tenancingo de Degollado, Estado de Mexico. Of course, I bought a few too many during our recent Mexico Textiles and Folk Art Tour Study Tour: Tenancingo Rebozos and More! Ikat: a design technique where the warp threads are first dyed […]
Butterflies on the Rebozo: Jesus Zarate’s Ikat Shawls
It’s not easy to describe how Jesus Zarate from Tenancingo de Degollado, Estado de Mexico, prepares the cotton weft threads to weave an ikat rebozo or shawl filled with 125 multi-colored butterflies. This rebozo is made on a traditional back strap loom. Jesus ties one end around his waist and the other to a fixed […]
2017 Mexico Textiles and Folk Art Study Tour: Tenancingo Rebozos + More
This study tour is designed as an intensive personal learning experience. Here in Tenancingo de Degollado and beyond, you will meet artisans in their homes and workshops, understand family traditions and culture, and help honor and preserve craft. Tenancingo de Degollado, Estado de Mexico (Edomex), is the source for handwoven ikat rebozos or shawls made on […]
Pueblo Magico Malinalco, Mexico: Rebozos Are Here, Too
Now I’m back in Oaxaca after a whirlwind nine-day folk art study tour featuring the ikat rebozos of the State of Mexico (Estado de Mexico). Rather than cover a range of territory, I like to stay put and go deep. So, we spent the week meeting the people who weave rebozos and tie the elaborate […]
Tenancingo Mi Tierra: Evaristo Borboa Casas Weaves Ikat Rebozos
It was our last day of nine days in Tenancingo de Degollado, Estado de Mexico, studying the ikat rebozo of Mexico. It was a free day when our ten textile study tour participants could return to visit a weaver they met earlier in the week if they wished or roam the town market. Britt and […]
Sunday Rebozo Market in Tenancingo de Degollado, Estado de Mexico
Sundays and Thursdays are tianguis open air market days in the ikat rebozo weaving town of Tenancingo de Degollado, Estado de Mexico. The Sunday market is the biggest and covers over four square blocks in the town center. Most of the rebozos in the market are sold by the puntadoras, the women who tie the […]
Tenancingo, Mexico Confetti Rebozo Weaver Fito Garcia Diaz
Adolfo “Fito” Garcia Diaz is an innovator. He takes the traditional ikat rebozo pattern that has been used in Tenancingo de Degollado for centuries and adapts it for contemporary style. His weaving is done on a flying shuttle loom and he makes three different rebozo lengths. The Raton: a short, narrower double-fold neck scarf with […]
Mexico Textiles Brief: In Transit to Tenancingo
MEXICO CITY, Thursday, September 3, 2015–Today is an interlude in Mexico City as I travel between Oaxaca and Tenancingo, the ikat rebozo capital of Mexico. I’m joining Los Amigos de los Artes Populares de Mexico, a group collectors and appreciators of Mexican Folk Art. We are traveling together to meet the grand masters of Mexican […]
El Rebozo Made in Mexico Exhibit, Franz Mayer Museum, Mexico City
Getting to see this exhibit El Rebozo Made in Mexico before it closes Sunday, August 30, 2015, has been a priority for me since I first heard about the planning for it several years ago from British fashion designer-textile artist Hilary Simon. I scheduled this Mexico City stopover of two days before returning to the […]
San Juan del Rio, Oaxaca: Mezcal on the Mountain
We didn’t start out planning a trip to San Juan del Rio, Oaxaca. It just happened as we moved into the day. Friend Sheri Brautigam, textile designer, collector and Living Textiles of Mexico blogger, is visiting me. After a roundabout through the Teotitlan del Valle morning market, we headed out to San Pablo Villa de […]
Shop Mexico: The Artisan Sisters Week 8–Red Ikat Rebozo (Scarf)
Today we offer for sale a beautiful handwoven cotton scarf/shawl from Tenancingo, Mexico, measuring 72″ long and 30″ wide. It is a warm tomato red. This is a traditional ikat rebozo that women wear all over Mexico. For them, it has many useful purposes — as a cover-up to stay warm, as a folded head […]
Mixteca Women Who Weave: Oaxaca Show and Sale, February 25
Judith Radtke and Jo Ann Feher just told me about this great show and sale coming up on Saturday, February 25 in Oaxaca City. If you are in town, they invite you to stop by. You will also have an opportunity to meet the women who weave these wonderful pieces in cotton, wool and natural […]
Oaxaca Collectible Textiles Sale, February 4, 2012
If you are in Oaxaca on February 4, 2012, don’t miss this spectacular sale of collectible textiles. Several well-known Norteñas who have lived in Oaxaca for many years are downsizing and editing their collections, including Mary Jane Gagnier who is a book author and formerly married to weaver Arnulfo Mendoza. If I wasn’t going to […]
Quechequemitl Pattern: Sew Your Own Pull-over Shoulder Cover
Say KECH-KEH-MEE. Here’s a textile museum definition of quechquemitl? Some people call it a shawl. It isn’t. Others say it’s a poncho. It isn’t. It’s not a scarf … exactly. It’s two pieces of rectangular cloth sewn together at a counterintuitive place for the likes of me, finished with a bound hem or some fancy […]
What’s a Quechquemitl? Find out at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca lecture.
Say: ketch-kem-mee. Indigenous Mexican clothing is traditionally handwoven on a backstrap loom. Sometimes, it is cut and sewn together so that it can be pulled down over the head as a shoulder cover-up that looks like a short shawl. The head opening is a virtual square that is formed by the joining of two […]