The women in Guatemala often use raw cotton when weaving textiles. They must first prepare the cotton by picking out the seeds, cleaning it, and then beating it with forked sticks. Then they can spin it into yarn and dye the threads with natural dyes: indigo to produce blue colors, cochineal for red, etc.
Women in Guatemala begin weaving by creating a ‘warp’ out of yarn. They wind the yarn around pegs on a warping board, crossing the strings in the middle to create a striped pattern. The warp is then attached to the bars of the loom and they are ready to begin the weaving process.
Lidia Lopez describing the meanings of the patterns on a huipil from Patzicia, Guatemala.
This little girl from Guatemala is wearing traditional clothing and carrying worry dolls.
The Guatemalan woman in this photo is making thread from cotton.
Lidia Lopez teaching visitors how to set up and weave on a backstrap loom.
This is JoAnn Paulsen at the Ixchel Museum of Indigenous Dress in Guatemala City, Guatemala.