Zapotec Oaxaca and Oriental Rugs for Sale
I am offering several rugs from my collection for sale! Why? They don’t fit into my Taos house. The sizes and colors are not adapting well to my new environment. Some are new. All are in excellent condition. How to Buy: send an email to norma.schafer@icloud.com and tell me the rug you want to purchase […]
Churro Wool: How the Spanish Brought Sheep to the Americas
In a week, I climb on the magic bird to carry me back to Oaxaca. It’s been a year-and-a-half since I left, just before Covid became a pandemic in March 2021 that erased all our plans and created this hunker-down-for-a-while, I’m scared mentality. Yesterday, I got my third jab, the Pfizer-BioNTech booster, plus a flu […]
Wrap Yourself in the Warmth of Mexico!
Dreaming of returning to Mexico or a winter away from cold, ice and snow? It may not happen for many of us this year. The next best thing, I think, is to wrap yourself in the warmth of Mexico. It’s mid-October and not too soon to think about how to stay comfy, cozy and dreaming […]
Mexico Designer Carla Fernandez Wool Cape — Big Discount + Raincoat
SOLD. This cape is from the Mexico City Colonia Roma boutique of designer Carla Fernandez. New! What was I thinking? I’m in Oaxaca in the winter and it’s not cold enough there! This is a beautiful, soft wool herringbone tweed with a flared design that drapes beautifully. It has deep pockets and open sides. It […]
A Story About Five Wool Rugs for Sale with 100% Natural Dyes, Oaxaca, Mexico
Omar Chavez Santiago went back to Mexico on Saturday but he left these five beautiful hand-woven tapestry rugs (tapetes) behind for me to sell for him and his family. Omar’s family from Galeria Fe y Lola, use 100% churro sheep wool that is hand-spun on the drop spindle (malacate) in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, […]
Omar’s Discovery Tour: A First Visit to the USA
Omar Chavez Santiago is twenty-four years old. He is a weaver and natural dyer from Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico. Last year, he graduated with a degree in industrial engineering after studying for four years at Anahuac University in Oaxaca. He is at a cross-roads. Does he pursue a professional engineering career and move to […]
Visiting the Oaxaca Wool Mill: Lanera de Ocotlan
In 1996 Englishman Graham Johnson came to Ocotlan de Morelos from Mexico City to open a woolen mill. The mill was designed to streamline the production process for making yarn and weaving cloth from local churro sheep wool* without sacrificing quality. Graham was a tinkerer. He loved machinery, especially the old carding and spinning […]
Nuno Felt Fashion Workshop 2015: Clothing Design with Pre-Hispanic Flair
Escape winter, roll up your sleeves, and make a nuno felted wool garment you will be proud to wear. For seven nights and eight days, from January 17 – 24, 2015, you will experience the textile culture of Oaxaca, make wearable fiber art from felt fabric, learn about natural dyes and the process to make them, […]
Natural Dye Workshop Yields Glorious, Colorfast Textiles
Working with natural dyes like cochineal that yield red, indigo blue, wild marigold (pericone) and fustic to give us yellow, is like being a pastry chef and following a recipe. It helps to know a little chemistry or have a willingness to learn. Eric Chavez Santiago and Elsa Sanchez Diaz, Mexico’s most knowledgeable natural dye […]
Felted Fabric Fashion Oaxaca Style
Making felt is one of the oldest forms of fabric known to humankind–a process more than 6,000 years old. Felt happens when sheep wool is moistened, heated and agitated. For our Felted Fashion Workshop with Jessica de Haas in Oaxaca this week, we used merino wool dyed with natural plant materials — […]
Workshop To Dye For: Cochineal, Indigo, Wild Marigold
It is a 10-hour day working together to dye the merino wool roving we are using for our Felted Fashion Workshop in Oaxaca, Mexico. Long, but satisfying. Our textile dye master is Eric Chavez Santiago who is also the education director at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca. The colors we get are magnificent. We gather […]
Omar’s Hat: Spinning and Knitting Hand-Dyed Wool Roving in Oaxaca
Knitting IMHO is a form of weaving, so I fit right into Teotitlan del Valle where weaving is the culture. Fiber and textile artists tend to experiment with different forms of the art. But first, a bit about the wool. This is 100% super wash merino roving with a 23u top that I bought from […]
Felted Fashion Workshop: Making Wearable Art Oaxaca Style with Wool, Silk and Cotton
For hands-on fun, escape winter and come to Oaxaca from February 2 until February 9, 2013. Together, during this one-week workshop, 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 […]
How to Make a Wool Felt Flower
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! Felted […]
How to Felt Wool: For Beginners
Ten women gathered together at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca for a felting workshop with Jessica de Haas from Vancouver, Canada. All but one of us were raw beginners. I had knitted and then agitated my wool in a washing machine, but Jessica was quick to say this is NOT felting. Rather it is called […]
Felting Wool at Museo Textil de Oaxaca
Textiles and fiber arts are the primary reason I landed in Oaxaca. It started years ago when I learned to weave in San Francisco, California. Now that I am here in Mexico almost full-time, I get to take advantage of the great workshops at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca organized by education director Eric Chavez […]