Oaxaca reading matter

Our time here in Oaxaca is coming to a close. I'll report in later with photos and a report of weavers and weaving we've seen while here in the land of weavers.

While here I've been reading "It's Easier Than You Think", by Sylvia Boorstein, which is a good book to read while on vacation. Here is a quote that gave me something to think about: "Forgiveness is the price you have to pay for freedom."

Twenty Thousand Years Ago

Here in Oaxaca I’ve been reading Women’s Work , by Elizabeth Wayland Barber. In it she talks about the evidence that suggests that women first started weaving some 20,000 years ago during the upper palaeolithic age in the Dordogne river valley in France. The author notes that until the industrial revolution changed the task of cloth making, we no longer engage in the day-to-day activity of making textiles.
That is, unless you’re in the Oaxaca valley were whole families, no, entire villages, are involved in the making cloth. This, I learned on a recent visit to Santa Ana de Valle where I visited a weaver and dyer, a reed and heddle maker, a carpenter crafting looms, and a family cultivating the cochineal bug used to make a beautiful red dye.
I don’t know how these crafters and growers view their lives, but I felt a sense of connectedness to textile makers and traditions that emerged some 20,000 years ago when humankind began to create fabric from fiber.
In the Oaxaca valley, the tradition of creating cloth by hand lives on in the lives of the people who make them and indeed the textiles themselves.

Trip to Oaxaca:bamboo fence

Leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar has a way of heightening your senses and allowing you to see things in new ways. That’s one of the wonderful things about travels, especially if they take you far away from the every day.
Yesterday I arrived with my husband Barry and friends to the hills of Oaxaca, and today we oriented ourselves to our little village. We lunched outside beside a pond where the air was perfect and the Modelo beer refreshing, and on the walk back home bought some very good mescal from the back of a pick-up truck. We spied the internet café where I’ll make this post and watched a man unload firewood from his burro just outside our gate. We reflected on the contrast of the high tec just steps away from life lived seemingly unchanged for centuries.
Along the dusty narrow streets lined on either side with high adobe walls and fences, many woven bamboo ones like this one made practical use of local materials.

More Shacht Goings On

To celebrate Spinning and Weaving Week a bunch of Schacht Folks spent part of a Saturday demonstrating our products and spinning and weaivng at our favorite LYS Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins, in Boulder.


Dave, Ladybug builder, posses by one of his recent creations.

Kayla (of spinning wheel land) and Cindy (production manager) demonstrate spinning. Kayla sits at our fabulous Ladybug Spinning wheel--which she soon thereafter sold.

Gail shows how to warp up the Cricket rigid heddle loom--lickety split.

Current events at Schacht

So much, so much going on. Starting from the top: our Day of the Dead Celebration at Schacht--a day early. We had an amazing lunchtime feast--and enjoyed our unseasonably warm weather. For Spinning and Weaving Week we hosted factory tours. Loads of fun to show enthusiasts and would-be enthusiasts how looms and spinning wheels are made. I've also included some pics from my trip to Lawrence, Kansas where I taught an inkle class and a rigid heddle workshop. Loads of fun to be with the Yarn Barn people. Thanks, Jim and Susan.



Stephanie: our amazing sales and service hotshot--did they really know who they were talking to? This is the very same Stephanie who was in our September-October HANDWOVEN ad! Looking Good; Feeling Good.

Left to right: Efren, Mercedes, Israel and Glenn enjoy a joke.

Constance as Wing Nut. She'd stay and chat she said but, "I've gotta bolt!"

Left to right: Anna, Gaudelupe, Mike, Paloma, and Barry enjoy the feast.

My fabulous rigid heddle Patterns and Textures Class at Yarn Barn.

One of our groups who came for a tour to celebrate Spinning and Weaving Week.

My inkle class impressed with how quickly they picked up pick-up! Some were first time inkle weavers, too! Congratulations. Another great Yarn Barn class--thanks Jim and Susan.