A Visit to Wakatinko

Today I ventured out to Wakatinko squished collectivo-style in the back seat of a truck. Wakatinko is a village south-east of Cusco, on the other side of the Andes.... We were up REALLY high. Highest elevation we crossed? 4185m. Damn that's a lot. It was a long drive-- about 3 hours one way. However, the scenery was magnificent! Didn't do much while we were there-- Nilda and another person from the center were there to talk about possible inclusion in the Center's group of weaving and knitting communities. Clara and I were just along for the ride.... Ended up talking to the teachers of the local school because the kids were too shy to say anything to Clara and I (and just forget it with the really little ones, they took one look at us, hid behind whatever was closest and kept staring). So, apart from that, I wandered around and took photographs.

In the Village:


This is me on top of a mountain.


Most super cute fuzzy cacti ever!


A view of part of the village.


Pretty much the rest of the village.


The adorable terrified children of the village.

On the drive in/out:


Beautiful open sweeping landscapes.


A riverbed with black sand. Had to drive across it to get there and back.


Rocky cliff face that looks like it might belong along the coast of Scotland...

Dye Day in Sallac

On our way home, driving down a dirt road with frequently occurring switchbacks, I had this realization that I live in the Andes Mountains... Maybe the coolest realization ever. Like anything else I'm surrounded with daily, I think sometimes I take them for granted. They're gigantic and gorgeous and in Cusco, they're just part of the city. However, once outside of Cusco, they're all you see and you have to move with them and between them to get anywhere. Long story short, mountains are gorgeous and I love them.

Today I woke up at 5:30am so I could accompany Nilda at her yearly dye day at Sallac, a village south of Cusco. Very few things other than natural dyes could get me out of bed at that hour. We drove the hour and a half to Sallac, the last half hour of which was spent on the above mentioned switch backs, working our way from the bottom to the top of a mountain. We got there and it was the most organized dye anything I've ever seen. The yarn was already scoured and sorted by color, the stoves were lit and water was already boiling, they dyes they had were already in their pots, clotheslines were hung, sticks were positioned next to their vats, and all the weavers were present. We unloaded and began immediately.



Today we did 12 dye vats:

Q'uolle

A flower dye that gives yellows. When combined with a Cochineal exhaust bath, you get deep golden yellows.

Fire Scarlet Cochineal- Using the yellow dyed yarn and the 1st yellow vat, you add red cochineal to the vat after straining out the flowers. Then you re-add the yellow yarn, as well as Alum and Citric acid to get a really beautiful true red.

Lichen

Lichens here grow on the cliff faces, and give rusty copper browns
**note: we were using low-altitude lichens today. high altitude lichens give slightly different colors

Palo-Palo

A twig that is bundled and dried, and then chopped roughly into small pieces before dyeing. It gives pretty peach/salmon colors (Durasno).

Awaypili

A purple leave that is dried and then dyed with. By itself, it give a medium to dark blue-purple.

Red-Purple Cochineal- The yarn is dyed first in a awaypili vat, the leaves are strained out of the water and shaken from the yarn, and the cochineal is added to the dye water. The yarn is re-added with Alum and Citric acid to achieve really dark warm purples.

Burgundy Cochineal

Cochineal on white yarn with citric acid and alum. With no color modification from other vats, the color is less true red as it has a little pink/purple in it.

Chilq'ua

A shrubby leafy plant that grows everywhere in the mountains, on hill sides and along the sides of the roads. The leaves are long and narrow and are used fresh for dyeing. They give beautiful middle greens, and with the addition of Cupric Sulfate (found in the volcanic rock here) they give dark greens and olives.

Chilq'ua/Q'uolle mix- gives a "limon green" as they say here, which by that they mean the green of the peel of a lime.

Q'uolle + Cochineal exhaust vats- give either golden yellow or orange depending on the ratio of dyestuffs.

Other than dyeing, I was lucky enough to be taken out to their 4 Prickly Pear Cactus sites around the village. They are growing them with the intention of trying to start a Cochineal insect crop, and as they the community furthest south, they're potentially warmer than the rest. The cacti were really cute and had little new growth buds along their tops like crowns. While we were out, they showed me what Chilq'ua and Q'uolle looked like as plants, which was cool too.

The Prickly Pear Cactus


The Q'uolle


We were basically finished with the dyeing by the time lunch rolled around. Lunch was a little embarrassing, because the 4 of us in Nilda's party were treated as "honored guests" and therefore were served our soup first and given bigger portions of meat than anyone except the village elders. Nilda and I agreed it was an awkward position to be in, but it's rude not to eat it and who would you share it with if you could?

After lunch, we rinsed anything we'd left cooking during lunch, cleaned all the pots and tubs, sorted the yarn, packed up, and drove home. Got back around 4pm, exhausted and stuffy from the campfire smoke, but I wouldn't have traded it for anything.



**NOTE: Sallac is one of the only villages in the area that uses Ikat. A bunch of what we dyed were tied Ikat warps. I'm always really excited to see these weavings in the Center's shops, because it's really rare here.

Weaving Lessons in Chinchero-- Day #3

Yesterday I learned 2 patterns-- Siki Punacug Ch'uru & J'ak'acu de 8 Pares. The siki punacug ch'uru is a simple patter, but beautiful. The J'ak'acu is gorgeous, and also the most difficult so far....

Siki Punacug Ch'uru


The growing pile of weavings


Cuty

Indigo Results

We think either the grapes or the peaches were too acidic, because we were having trouble keeping the pH of the new vat basic. This caused our results to be awful... le sigh. So, as it stands now, your options are apples, pears, or bananas and don't you dare go near anything that even thinks about having citrus of any sort.

In better news-- 3rd weaving lesson in Chinchero tomorrow!! Sounds like I'll be doing Chakimas (wide belts) this time. It's so exciting!

Indigo: A different plan of attack for the same recipe

So it didn't work out as well as we would've liked the other day... We got light teals and greys. So we re-worked what we're doing.


Here's the new recipe:

Natural Indigo Fructose Dye

Needed: 1kg rotten/over-ripe fruit
3gal bucket with a snug lid
10g natural reduced indigo
Mortar and pestle
6g Calx/ slaked lime
A stove and a tea kettle and a pot or two
Cutting board and knife
Gram scale
Nitrile gloves
Dust mask
Thermometer
Stir stick (pref. wood)
Protein Fibers (yarn, fabric, ect) in aprox. 15g quantities to begin…

Two notes before I begin:
-First, always put the lid on your bucket between steps, to reduce the amount of oxygen that is allowed access to the vat.
-Second, always pour your liquids gently, tipping the bucket and pouring down the side to prevent the addition of oxygen to the vat.

1. Crush or very finely chop the 1kg fruit. The riper the fruit the better. Add to pot with a very small amount of water (1/4c aprox) and boil no more than 20min.

2. Put on a tea kettle for boiling hot water.

3. Add entire pot to your 3gal bucket and add hot water until the bucket is just
slightly less than half full.

4. Weigh out your 10g indigo and grind it until it’s an even, extremely fine consistency. Make sure you’re wearing a dust mask as the particulates can act as inhalants and irritate your throat.

5. Add hot water to your indigo in the mortar and pestle and grind again until all the indigo has dissolved.

6. Add dissolved indigo to your fructose vat and stir with the pestle to get all the indigo off it.

7. Measure Calx (6g) and add immediately to your vat. **remember to wear gloves and measure it in a place with good air circulation

8. Stir the calx quickly into your vat. The liquid will turn a dark olive green. If no bubbles form, add another 4-6g Calx to the vat and stir quickly again. You are looking for surface bubbles and a bronze skin that forms on the surface.


9. Let sit 10 minutes before skimming the film and bubbles off the surface.

10. Wet your yarn and wring out completely before adding to the vat. Add it slowly, using your stir stick to gently press under the surface of the indigo liquid.

11. Leave yarn sit 20min.

12. Remove the yarn gently (no bubbles) after 20min and rinse well.

13. Shake the yarn to expose it to oxygen, until all green color has left it.


14. Hang to dry 30min


15. If the yarn is not dark enough, you can re-dip it after your 30min is up.


To do consecutive vats:


1. Heat the pot of water to boiling and add the vat to it once it’s hot. (like a double boiler)
2. Leave vat in pot until the temperature reaches 50 degrees C/F??
3. Add more yarn, same as above. Leave sit 30 min before removing and rinsing. Shake as before to expose to oxygen, and hang dry.


**After you are finished dyeing, you must leave your fabric/yarn alone for 2 weeks before using!!

Indigo Day #2

Got to work today just in time for Indira to come back with a mortar and pestle. We finished making our skeins (we found some cotton, no worries) and took the Calx and indigo outside to weigh out (calx is an irritant, so outside is better). We are testing two different types of Indigo, so we measured out six 6g packets of calx, three 10g packets of a grey-blue looking indigo, and three 10g packets of a bright blue indigo. All the indigo we're using is natural, but pre-reduced, so it comes in brickett form and we have to grind it up (hence the need for the mortar and pestle).



Mix the indigo into the bucket, then the calx and wait for the bubbles!


The Calx (lime) turns it green. Once there are bubbles, you move them to the side and add the yarn and wait 24hrs.


On the way home there was a rainbow.

A deviation from the Indigo Plans....

Indira called in sick today-- she said she ate something that didn't agree with her. So whatever was I to do?! I hadn't brought my computer (not that I wanted to be on it all day anyway), so I began balling up 30g balls of alpaca yarn for the dye testing.... I was interrupted the first time by the necessity for an umbrella swift for the skein to spin on. My trying to ask for an umbrella swift was apparently hilarious, as all the ladies in the office where the ball winders are laughed at me with I asked for their counter part. Paragua de la llana is not what it's called, as I found out. When one was uncovered, it was so sad and broken I had to tape it to it's pole and tie it down so it didn't shrink on me. I'm thinking of asking one of the manufacturers to donate a few for the Center.

I was interrupted the second time when Nilda asked if I was doing anything important today and then sent me and one of the weavers out to Chinchero to take pictures of hands doing pick-up weaving for the cover of the book she's working on. She wanted young and old and everything in the middle hands, with a variety of weaving sizes. So off we went. A taxi from the center to the collectivo depot to Chinchero... It not only rained the whole way there but when we got there, there was more hail on the ground. Very few weavers out and about for the picture taking. Le sigh. I think I did alright though, and all the weavers were excited to see the pictures of their hands. Had lunch in Chinchero-- some kind of thick beef broth soup with barley and veggies, and lomo saltado (salty beef with potatos and rice). Was then packed back into a collectivo to get to Cusco, then a taxi back to the center. Got back just in time to photograph some weavings for their texture, and to help with creating an English version of the index page for Nilda's book. Somewhere in there I did manage to make 6 balls of 30g each of alpaca yarn, however I was hoping to get to the sheep (obeca) yarn as well.

Left work later than usual, hit the grocery store on the way home (only to find that the only thing they had on my list was wine), came home and devoured some guacamole. I'm about to resume work on my weaving, and if I'm lucky, I'll have it finished before heading out for salsa dancing this evening.

Compare and Contrast

Things that don't seem to exist in Cusco:

muffin Cups
cotton yarn
70% dark chocolate (or any kind of dark chocolate with sugar)
cocoa powder
coconut milk
Jalapenos
people who exercise on purpose (and not just in necessity)
whole wheat flour
corn tortillas
hot water for baths
predictable weather
blueberries

You may ask "why is most everything on this list food related?" I would answer, "because I love to cook and I really love to eat." Then you may ask "what prompted this list-making?" And I'd answer, "Finding a muffin tin after a month and a half of living her and not finding muffin cups to go with it."

Fructos Indigo Vat-- Day #1

Today Indira and I began the first of our natural dye natural vat testing. We decided that, as we'd collected 3 versions of Fructose Vat Indigo Dye recipe, it was a good place to start.

----------------
The Recipe:

1kg over-ripe fruit
10g finely crushed indigo
food grade slaked lime or calx
water

pH strips
Strainer
Stove and small pot
Mortar and pestle
Gallon bucket


This is aprox what we will be doing: Crush the indigo finely, then hydrate it by crushing again with a small quantity of water in order to get a fluid paste. Boil your over-ripe fruit in water for 10-15 min, in order to extract both sugars and flavonoïds, then in this liquid add your indigo (strain as you do) + one full spoon of lime or calx and stir gently-- the coppery surface appears, then some blue bubbles, while the liquid turns yellow/green. At that step you may try a few samples, but if you wait for a couple of hours, the vat is stronger, even the day after.

The main difficulty is to keep this vat for a long time. Indeed it is really possible, but at this step, the control of the pH and some observations must be done before each dye.

This point takes time and some days for an efficient course. This kind of vats is very appropriate for dyeing protein fibers, but even cellulosic fibers can be dyed in it, it is a question of pH again. Remember that the reduction is issued of the oxidation of sugars. During this transformation, the sugar is transformed in lactic acid, so the pH goes down, so you will need to add some more lime from time to time to correct the pH."
----------------

We began by collecting the ingredients necessary... A trip to the street of fruit vendors in Santiago for over-ripe fruit (apples, strawberries, papaya, and pineapples for the first tests). They were all like "what?" but gave it to us anyway. Then off to a magical cooking store for a strainer and a cooking thermometer. Of course we forgot the mortar and pestle, so we have to go back tomorrow. While we were there I found a muffin tin and a thermos for tea (hellz yes muffins!)

On our wandering path we found lunch (roasted oca and plantain and sweet potato, and also bruschetta and chocolate filled croissants and mini avocados) which we took back to the Center with us and feasted upon. We also found a miscellaneous paper items shop that specialized in platen printed receipts and wedding cards. THERE WERE TWO PLATEN PRESSES RUNNING IN THE BACK OF THIS SHOP!!! I was more than excited. They were in beautiful condition and it looked like there might even be a few type cases back there.... Found a store that has every type of paper I've encountered and then some (I'm totally going back there, screw the art stores that only carry cheap watercolor paper).

After lunch, we began the cooking of the fruit in the little kitchen in the back of the center. We donned gloves and boiled water and weighed out our dead fruit. I was given the pleasant job of pulling the green tops off the dead&squishy strawberries before they went into the pot. Indira prepped the apples, and while we waited for these to cook, I got to scoop seeds from the really dead papaya and chop it roughly. Once a pot was done, it was poured through the strainer and the guts were pressed until they leeched no more moisture. At the end of the day, we have 3 buckets with fruit sugar juices in them. Tomorrow we'll be dividing these into 6 buckets as we're testing two types of indigo, adding the lime, and dividing and weighing out yarn while we wait for the buckets to grow stronger.

On my way home I stopped at the Mercado de Wanchaqu and bought veggies, however, I also found a person there who sells 100% Cotton yarn (string), so sounds like we're headed there tomorrow as well, because we've currently got alpaca and sheep but no cotton. It's really crazy how hard it is to get 100% cotton anything here, even just plain muslin broadcloth! My usual "I'll just order it from Webs" doesn't work here though so we have to get creative.

And now my apology: I'm sorry I have no pictures of icky dead fruit for you, I'll definitely try harder tomorrow....

Weaving in Chinchero

So, after a whole month of waiting and working on my spinning, I got to go out to Chinchero Saturday and today to begin learning to weave. When you're learning, you begin with Jakimas-- narrow belt weavings.


On Saturday, I finished weaving two pre-made warps. The first was a plain weave, just to get used to the type of weaving, and get a feel for the tension and keeping a good edge. The second was the pattern Tanka Ch'uro, which seems to be a flower derived pattern. It is a simple pattern, used for getting used to reading pick-up patterns.

The Tanka Ch'uro pattern:

xxooxx
ooxxoo
oooooo
xxooxx
oooooo
ooxxoo
xxooxx
oooooo
ooxxoo
oooooo

Which looks like this:


Today I learned to make the warps, and then advanced to a more complex pattern called the Cuty. I'm told it's the basis for a great deal of the rest of the patterning.


The Cuty pattern:

oxxooxxo
oooooooo
xoooooox
xxooooxx
oxxooxxo
xxxxooxx
xooxxoox
ooooxxoo
xooxxoox
ooxxoooo
xooxxoox
xxooxxxx
oxxooxxo
xxooooxx
xoooooox
oooooooo

Which looks something like this:

oooooooo
oxxxxxxo
xxxoooxx
oxxooxxo
ooxxoooo
oooxxxoo
ooooxxxx
oxxoooxx
xxoooxxx
oxxxxxxo
oooooooo

I am planning to work on my Cuty Jakima during the evenings this week, possibly while watching Star Wars, possibly while I listen to my back-log of Savage Love podcasts. I'll show it off fully once it's finished.

Q'usikancha

Adrienne took me on a tour of one of her Archeological sites today, the Q'usikancha. It's a large Inca/pre-Inca structure, that was taken over by the Incas and then by the Spanish, so there's a large mix of architectural influences all in one space. The current theory is that it was where the priests from the local religions were brought together and housed when the Incas conquered territories. It was also a ceremonial site, with many small kanchas or alcove-style rooms for private ceremonies to specific deities and a larger grassy plaza for Incan ceremonies (remember they worshiped the sun, gotta have that space out in the open!).



What she's doing there is helping to recognize the original pieces versus the alterations and recreations that have happened over the centuries. Apparently it's been sold MANY times, as well as passed through families, and is a giant cluster of re-imaginings. Today, there is mostly Inca architecture preserved in the grassy areas, with pre-Inca canals and water systems, and, for good measure, an alpaca and a few vicuna* roaming about.



*please note: Vicuna are wild creatures in Peru. They're one of the softest animals in the world, but they're also territorial and prone to aggressive behavior such as biting or spitting at tourists who think they're cute and try to pet them.

Working Working

I spent this week working on the CTTC's 2011 Christmas cards. In order to do this, I had to find a copy of Adobe Indesign, make it my own, and then figure out how to use it. Still have a lot of learning to do, but all in all, it's a pretty decent accomplishment for a week.

Every year, the CTTC has a basic xmas card.


They also have a Chocolatada Navidena x-mas card, which is used for fundraising for the Christmas parties they host in their affiliated weaving communities. What exactly do they do, you might ask? They take hot coco and toys to their 9 weaving communities, so the children in all of those villages get at least one toy for Christmas. I have this feeling it's going to be heartbreaking going out to help with this.....

The Rainy Season Comes Early

When I got here-- Actually, even before, back when I was doing research on Cusco's climate-- I was informed that Cusco has a rainy season. It's supposed to begin sometime mid to end of October. However, looking out side the last few afternoons, and listening to the women around the office, it makes me think that global climate change hasn't had a hand in forcing the rains to come early.

I know there's a mountain out that window, but hell if I can see it... I think there's a cloud sitting on top of the city!

Another Article

Reporter Lisa Mauch contacted me a month ago, asking if she could feature me in an article for Cincinnati.com about Fulbright Scholars from the Cincinnati area. Of course, I said yes... And then the article comes out and it's only about two people-- Alex Wilkerson and myself. We graduated from the same high school, the same year, and now both have Fulbrights! How exciting and surprising!

Fulbright Scholars say adios, auf wiedersehen

Aventura del Domingo

Spent last night picking through my Alpaca wool so I will be ready to spin it soon, and woke up well enough to taxi to Molino, a big everything-you-can-think-of market in Cusco, so I could practice my Spanish. We found more movies and hunted elusive pressure cookers.... Then a 3 block walk to el Mercado de Ttio, where Avocados are far too expensive and we found fresh nutmeg and basil (also elusive, these two), and yummy looking swiss chard, which I will happily devour, no worries.

Now for a calm rest of the day, working on my website, which has been sorely neglected the last month, and maybe creating a google+ profile for myself so I can continue to hold obsessive control over my internet image...


It's such a beautiful day, I'm really glad I could get outside for a little bit!

I really hate being sick

Anybody who knows me knows I never stop going, doing, or otherwise moving. I don't take naps, I don't sit still, I don't lay in the sunshine unless I also have something to do with my hands. I don't just watch movies. Therefore it's doubly hard when I get sick, because not only do I feel awful, but I cannot be my usual self, and then I get bored and stir crazy, and I often push my luck, which is bad. I'm trying really hard not to do that now (which isn't difficult because when you're sick at a high altitude, apparently it's just that much harder to breathe if you do anything remotely active). I'd really like to go to the Saturday market. I want some fresh Avocados and flat bread for lunches this week. And we need more water in the apt, and Quinoa. However, doing last night's dishes just about did me in... So I'm taking a break for a few minutes, may work on the book I started yesterday (the first of the Dirk Pitt novels, The Mediterranean Caper by Clive Cussler-- they come highly recommended as far as fluff action/loosely archeological novels go). If I fall asleep, I don't have to worry about retracing my steps, and I can put it down and pick it up at whim. And then maybe I'll feel okay enough to go. It's supposed to be only a 10min walk...

Virgen de Natividad

Today is a Catholic holiday that people in the Cusco region celebrate by dressing up in costumes and dancing, and by drinking liberally for the next few days. I went out to Chinchero today, where the largest celebration for this holiday is held. It began last night with a parade, and then continued this morning with a mass in the most opulent church I've ever been inside-- 16th century colonial church, how awesome!




This is Adrienne, in case you were curious...

Adrienne and I took a bus out to Chinchero, toured the CTTC HQ there and were shooed up the hill towards the church. It was so crowded that Adrienne and I decided to talk a walk to the Chinchero Inca Ruins and wait to go inside until after mass began to empty out. For today, halfway down the steps was quite enough, especially since we weren't used to the altitude up there.







Had lunch in the market square and found myself a new hat to replace the one I lost, then I headed back up the hill to see the dancing.



The dancers come out in groups, each with their own small band, and dance for what seems like an unspecified amount of time. Each group represents a myth or an important historical event or an important person/group of people. There were clowns running about in knitted masks, being ridiculous and chasing people in full body monkey costumes.... And whenever a group was finished dancing outside the church, they meandered their way down the mountain with their band to a family's house (a family of one of the members of their group) to eat and drink and keep dancing.





I left around 4pm, as everyone was headed to the private houses for food. I usually taxi back from Chinchero to Cusco, as the buses (colectivos) run more irregularly, but the only one I found was already full in the seating area and I ended up ridding back in the trunk. **Please note: Most taxis here are hatchback cars with trunks that are open to the rest of the interior. For long drives, they fill these taxi's excessively--driver plus 2 in the front passenger seat, 4 in the back seat, and 2 in the trunk area.



When we got back to Cusco, I had to walk home from the Puente Grau (the Grau bridge). It took about 20min. By this point I was feeling my day. I was going to go back today, however I think I caught a cold over the course of the day.... Some combination of Danitza telling me that morning that everyone at my Spanish school was getting sick, stress of traveling to and from, the higher altitude, and fried (but tasty) food for lunch. Went to bed around 8pm with a mild fever and plan to spend the next few days recovering.