Loom & Dye
Thread, and everything done to it before and after it becomes thread. Looms that need a body to hold them together, dyes taken from an insect and a leaf, and patterns that name a valley rather than a country.
5 entries
Section 01 of 06
Section 01 of 06
Entries in Loom & Dye
Cloth, and the colour put into it.- 001 The backstrap loomBackstrap loom · Otavalo, Ecuador A loom with no frame: one end tied to a post, the other to the weaver's body, tension controlled by leaning back. Portable, ancient, still in daily use, and it decides the width of everything woven on it.
- 002 CochinealCochineal dyestuff · Oaxaca, Mexico A red taken from an insect farmed on cactus — for three centuries one of the most valuable exports out of the Americas. How it is raised, dried and turned into colour.
- 003 Indigo and the vatIndigo vat · Central America and the Andes Indigo will not dissolve in water. The dye works only through a fermented vat, and the cloth comes out green and turns blue in the air.
- 004 Reverse appliquéMola panel · Guna Yala, Panama Layers of cloth stacked and then cut away rather than added — the mola panel and how the design is found by subtraction.
- 005 What a pattern tells youWoven motif · Quetzaltenango, Guatemala Motif, colour and layout that identify a village rather than a country.