So my wonderful lady arrived from the US on Thursday morning, after spending a 5 hour lay-over in the Lima airport!! As of now, we've done quite a bit of adventuring, and there's still more to come. However, here's an overview of what we were up to:
Mercado San Pedro
Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco
Quorikancha
Mercado de Huanchac (Saturday Veg Market)
Chocolate Museum + Workshop
Chinchero Weavers + Sunday Market **were kicked out of the ruins, what?
Amazing Indian Dinner, full of Aloo Saag Cury, Paratha bread, and samosas!!
Molino + Pachacutec (sp) Tower + Ave. Cultura + Trivia Writing at the Real McCoy
Pisac + Colonial Oven Adventure
Amazing Pizza (Justina's)
Sacsaywaman + nat hist museum + regional art + sucky church + rain + nobakes
Moray + Maras
Horse back riding to ruins near sacsaywaman + sushi
Ollantaytambo ** All by itself because it take so 'effing long to get there and back...
Look for individual posts for pictures!
Showing posts with label Chinchero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinchero. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Monday, March 05, 2012
Urine Vat Indigo
Saturday's Vat: 7.25kg lana + 507g Indigo
1. Ferment the Urine
2. Grind indigo super fine with a large mortar and pestle.
3. Put 20 gallon buckets of urine in a large vat.
4. Dissolve the indigo in the urine using nylons.
5. Let sit 30min to an hour.
6. Measure appropriate amount of yarn (and watch the weavers having a heated discussion).
6. Add yarn, stir until saturated.
1. Ferment the Urine
2. Grind indigo super fine with a large mortar and pestle.
3. Put 20 gallon buckets of urine in a large vat.
4. Dissolve the indigo in the urine using nylons.
5. Let sit 30min to an hour.
6. Measure appropriate amount of yarn (and watch the weavers having a heated discussion).
6. Add yarn, stir until saturated.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The Weavers
So as not to show favoritism, Nilda sometimes asks me to take pictures of the weavers backs, so you can't identify their faces. This way we have photos to choose from, just in case they need anonymous images for publication materials. However it's still really cool to just watch the women going about the process of weaving, so I thought I'd share a few pictures.
This is how the warp here in Peru. That big metal thing is their warping frame and they throw the balls of yarn at eachother.
These are women weaving mantas, ponchos, and table runners for sale in the shops. Those are some big ass weavings.
This is how the warp here in Peru. That big metal thing is their warping frame and they throw the balls of yarn at eachother.
These are women weaving mantas, ponchos, and table runners for sale in the shops. Those are some big ass weavings.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Urea-based Indigo Vats
How Midevil... And yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like. A small garbage can full of fermented urine that you dissolve ground, pre-reduced natural indigo into by putting the indigo into a nylon stocking and soaking it in urine, then wringing it out until it’s all dissolved…. It’s kinda like doing laundry by hand? Except extremely smelly and horrific if it splashes. So once it’s dissolved, then you add the yarn and stir and leave it sit for a few weeks. That simple right? Except that the dissolving was supposed to be done for when we got there and it wasn’t, so Indira and I each had a vat of our own to dissolve indigo into—which took us over 2 hours. Over 2 hours standing over a tub of urine, continuously dipping and re-dipping a stocking full of indigo into it. Then, once we got it dissolved, we had to hunt for the yarn (which was also supposed to be there and weighed already). And instead of just weighing and adding it, we had to wait for the weavers to stop arguing over how much yarn each of them got to add to the vats before we could get things finished. And now? 3 weeks to wait. And then we can add more yarn to the vats for an exhaust dye.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Dyeing in Chinchero
Today was a dye workshop with the weavers in Chinchero. Amazing. We dyed yellow (flower dye), orange (flower dye mixed with cochineal), orange (lichen), peach (woody stems), red (cochineal), purple (cochineal with a cupric sulfate modifier), green (plant leaves), really dark green (plant leaves with cupric sulfate), turquoise (plant with fungi), pink (second dye in cochineal vat), and there were still a few more pots on the stoves when I left! I still don’t know what they dyes are called in Spanish however I’m now able to identify which plants make which colors, and how to prepare most of these plants for cooking. They use alum in large rock crystal form, and citric acid to modify ph, as well as cupric sulfate which is found in the volcanic rock in the area—much different from the blue vitriol I’m used to (safer too!).
The workshop today was the children of the weavers, a group of biology & botany students from Washington University in Oregon, myself, and Clara. Nilda and the weavers oversaw the day’s proceedings and directed what was to be done in what order. Dyeing in Peru is an all-in-one process (ie. the yarn is mordanted and dyed at once, and the dyestuff is cooked with the yarn). First was the preparation of the dyestuffs and heating the water with the mordant in it.
The leaves needed their stems removed, the plant with fungi and the woody stems had to be chopped into little pieces, the cochineal ground to a powder, the flowers removed from their stems, ect. So once the dyestuff was prepped, it went into the pot and the quantity of yarn allocated for that dye went in with it. It cooked until it looked like it was the right color (no specific timing). As it cooked, if it looked not to be the right color, the modification was just tossed into the pot and then you stirred frantically. So, if it needed to be more… red maybe? You added vinegar to the cochineal and stirred. If the yellow was too yellow and needed to be more gold, a bucket of red dye water from one of the cochineal pots was poured into the pot and you stirred frantically. They removed the pot from the wood stove and pulled a bucket of dye water out of the vat when they wanted to add the copper modifier. The copper was added to that small bucket, stirred it in until dissolved, and then poured it into the pot and then you stir like crazy (you stir with large sticks, btw, because these pots could cook a small person). Then the pot is put back on the heat. Once it’s cooked enough, the pot is taken off the wood stove, and a massive group of people hoist the yarn out of the pot with the large sticks, hold it there to drip, and then drop it into a large tub to be set aside and sorted later.
Then the dye water is used for an exhaust vat or its color is modified for another color entirely. I later ended up going through the red cochineal and the purple cochineal vats, sorting yarn (my hands are now various shades of orange and purple). Once the skeins were separated, they were laid on the wooden fence and sorted by what type of yarn they were. Once things calm down a bit and the yarn is sufficiently cool, it is then rinsed out.
During the day there were a few very interesting things that went on. The first is I ended up giving a mini science lesson on the chemistry of natural dyeing to the biology/botany students—why they use protein based fibers, what the chemical names of the mordants were and what they basically do, why you use them, how the colors change based on PH, dyes I use in the states, ect. They were absolutely fascinated and I was having a great time. It was nice to feel helpful, and I always love talking to scientists about dyeing because they come at it from such a different (but awesome) perspective. The second interesting thing is they served a 3 course lunch for everybody… It began with a delicious broth based barley and veggie soup, dressed with cilantro. There was toasted barley and corn on the table for snacking and spicy home-made salsa. Then the second course which included: a purred bean dish that had the consistency of hummus, a veggie dish of swiss chard, potato, vinegars and spices that was AMAZING, a cooked salad of lima beans, carrots, with peeled tomatoes, fresh onions, and cubed cheese, boiled corn and potatoes and lima beans (a staple), and fried corn flour biscuits with peppers and cheese. Then the third course, seasoned and roasted cuy (which tastes like duck btw). To finish it off, they served Matte de Coca tea. I WAS SO FULL (Estoy muy satisfecha). I helped serve, because they needed it and ate in between helping. People wanted to know what things were (which I felt special when I knew). The third and maybe strangest/coolest (figuratively and literally) thing that happened today, was that, after lunch, it hailed on us!!! This is very strange weather here. We all had to duck under the awnings to seek shelter and keep working. It hailed for almost 45min. The children were running around, throwing showballs at each other (they’d probably never seen such a thing before!) So we all finished out the day with wet pants and shoes….
I left around 4pm, taking a super crowded taxi back to Cusco (2 ppl in the front passenger seat, 4 in the back seat, and 2 in back of the hatchback). Indira (one of the women from the CTTC, who is in charge of organizing dye workshops) and I went to the grocery store on our way home. And yet I don’t have it in me to cook this evening after the lunch I had!! Best things about this evening? Hot showers and a brand new archeologist apt. mate Adrienne!!!
The workshop today was the children of the weavers, a group of biology & botany students from Washington University in Oregon, myself, and Clara. Nilda and the weavers oversaw the day’s proceedings and directed what was to be done in what order. Dyeing in Peru is an all-in-one process (ie. the yarn is mordanted and dyed at once, and the dyestuff is cooked with the yarn). First was the preparation of the dyestuffs and heating the water with the mordant in it.
The leaves needed their stems removed, the plant with fungi and the woody stems had to be chopped into little pieces, the cochineal ground to a powder, the flowers removed from their stems, ect. So once the dyestuff was prepped, it went into the pot and the quantity of yarn allocated for that dye went in with it. It cooked until it looked like it was the right color (no specific timing). As it cooked, if it looked not to be the right color, the modification was just tossed into the pot and then you stirred frantically. So, if it needed to be more… red maybe? You added vinegar to the cochineal and stirred. If the yellow was too yellow and needed to be more gold, a bucket of red dye water from one of the cochineal pots was poured into the pot and you stirred frantically. They removed the pot from the wood stove and pulled a bucket of dye water out of the vat when they wanted to add the copper modifier. The copper was added to that small bucket, stirred it in until dissolved, and then poured it into the pot and then you stir like crazy (you stir with large sticks, btw, because these pots could cook a small person). Then the pot is put back on the heat. Once it’s cooked enough, the pot is taken off the wood stove, and a massive group of people hoist the yarn out of the pot with the large sticks, hold it there to drip, and then drop it into a large tub to be set aside and sorted later.
Then the dye water is used for an exhaust vat or its color is modified for another color entirely. I later ended up going through the red cochineal and the purple cochineal vats, sorting yarn (my hands are now various shades of orange and purple). Once the skeins were separated, they were laid on the wooden fence and sorted by what type of yarn they were. Once things calm down a bit and the yarn is sufficiently cool, it is then rinsed out.
During the day there were a few very interesting things that went on. The first is I ended up giving a mini science lesson on the chemistry of natural dyeing to the biology/botany students—why they use protein based fibers, what the chemical names of the mordants were and what they basically do, why you use them, how the colors change based on PH, dyes I use in the states, ect. They were absolutely fascinated and I was having a great time. It was nice to feel helpful, and I always love talking to scientists about dyeing because they come at it from such a different (but awesome) perspective. The second interesting thing is they served a 3 course lunch for everybody… It began with a delicious broth based barley and veggie soup, dressed with cilantro. There was toasted barley and corn on the table for snacking and spicy home-made salsa. Then the second course which included: a purred bean dish that had the consistency of hummus, a veggie dish of swiss chard, potato, vinegars and spices that was AMAZING, a cooked salad of lima beans, carrots, with peeled tomatoes, fresh onions, and cubed cheese, boiled corn and potatoes and lima beans (a staple), and fried corn flour biscuits with peppers and cheese. Then the third course, seasoned and roasted cuy (which tastes like duck btw). To finish it off, they served Matte de Coca tea. I WAS SO FULL (Estoy muy satisfecha). I helped serve, because they needed it and ate in between helping. People wanted to know what things were (which I felt special when I knew). The third and maybe strangest/coolest (figuratively and literally) thing that happened today, was that, after lunch, it hailed on us!!! This is very strange weather here. We all had to duck under the awnings to seek shelter and keep working. It hailed for almost 45min. The children were running around, throwing showballs at each other (they’d probably never seen such a thing before!) So we all finished out the day with wet pants and shoes….
I left around 4pm, taking a super crowded taxi back to Cusco (2 ppl in the front passenger seat, 4 in the back seat, and 2 in back of the hatchback). Indira (one of the women from the CTTC, who is in charge of organizing dye workshops) and I went to the grocery store on our way home. And yet I don’t have it in me to cook this evening after the lunch I had!! Best things about this evening? Hot showers and a brand new archeologist apt. mate Adrienne!!!
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Chinchero
Today I traveled out to Chinchero with Nilda and her esposo (husband) for the Festival happening today. When we arrived, the CTTC’s weavers were assembled (as they are basically 7 days a week) in the Chinchero HQ’s courtyard. I got to meet her Mama and many of the weavers she grew up learning from or weaving with. They were decked out in traditional garb [picture!!] and had wares for sale, were working on warps in various states of progress tied to posts around the yard, were spinning piles of roving with drop spindles, and in the back of the court yard, a gigantic pot sat on a wood fire stove simmering yarn with natural dye flowers. Natural dyes are like a magnet for me…. As soon as I noticed the pot, I headed straight towards it. On the stone wall across from the cooking stoves were bowls with piles of natural dyestuffs, and a few mordants as well (as of yet unidentified, but my guess is lime, alum and salt). There was also a stick with big skeins of yarn on it in various shades of red (cochineal), orange (lichen), yellow (the dye pot on the stove at that moment), green, blue-green, purple, and blue (indigo). I was in heaven. A woman came over to stir the giant cauldron and I tried asking questions of her… the answers I only understood a part of, but it was enough to get the gist of which plants made which colors, and which was in the pot at that moment. What was really interesting was later, after I’d gotten back from the festival, I offered to help the woman from earlier (who never did give me her name even though I asked) wash out the yarn. It had big chunks of flowers in it!! I sat there, picking flower bits out, wondering if they hadn’t thought to put the dyestuff in a nylon mesh bag, and my thoughts were interrupted by the woman telling me to Shake the yarn…. I have dyed with things (black walnuts and annatto to name a couple) where I had to shake the skeins to get all the particulates out, however I never found it particularly pleasant. I’m sure the overhead of purchasing a cheap giant bolt of nylon mesh (for pantyhose) would be worth it for the time they save picking out flower bits? I may mention it at some point…
Upon arrival I was told that Chinchero usually has a big Sunday market, but that they moved it to the festival grounds today. So once I’d seen Nilda’s house and the Center’s HQ, Clara (the awesome Canadian working with the CTTC) and I went off to the festival! They had pens of animals (including giant pigs and cuy (guinea pigs), food vendors cooking over wood stoves, more textiles that you could shake a stick at, booths for utensils (at one of which I got myself a drop spindle!), stands exhibiting competition weavings and potatos, and a big ring for the dances. I only got to see a few dances as I am so short that I got crowded out and couldn’t see over everyone else, but they were beautiful and full of color. As I understand it, all the children in Chinchero form groups, choreograph dances, choose costumes, and compete at this festival. After I decided I was done with the dancing for a while, I went back to the CTTC’s stand at the festival and asked one of the spinners if she could show me how to spin. Spinning was one of those things I learned a few times at MICA, but never did enough of to really get good at it. Today I started from scratch, learning from some of the best spinners in the world (they are good enough to spin thin yarn that stands up to being pulled taut as warp thread, so it my estimation, this ranks them the best. I’ve never met a hand-spun yarn I’d use as a warp until I saw what these women do). One of them grabbed a chunk of llama yarn that had been set aside as unsuitable for spinning, told me I could have it if I wanted it, and when I nodded, she showed me how to begin. And then how they spin (which is to almost overspin). I spent some time on it before getting food, and after getting food, being stuffed with more food by the weavers.
After lunch, Clara and I headed back to the center—she had a warp to work on and I wanted out of the sun, because I was starting to feel the elevation and needed a break (in actuality I spent the afternoon spinning, and am now better than aweful). Right before I left, I stopped at a booth I had noticed earlier that had hats. I bought the most beautiful felt blocked wide brimmed hat… but left it in the taxi on my way to San Blas due to my splitting headache, and now I am sad and frustrated with myself. The headache has since gone away (due to 4 ibuprophine) which is the upside. It’s my belief it was caused by my going off the altitude meds. Le sigh.
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