Since I haven’t posted in a while I thought I’d pull something from my “vault” – I’m slowly posting bits and pieces about my travels.

Towards the end of my time in Guatemala I found myself in Xela, the “second city” of Guatemala. It’s a very popular place to study Spanish in Guatemala – it’s a bit more authentic than Antigua but is still touristy enough that a backpacker never has to wander too far to find a cafe with free Wi-Fi. I didn’t think I’d stay long but on my third day I met a guy who had been weaving at Trama Textiles. I definitely hadn’t thought too much about doing a weaving class but after an enthusiastic chat I decided to go along and see what all the fuss was about …

A few minutes after I arrived I was hooked. The ladies running the classes were so friendly, it was what I imagine an old fashioned quilting bee would be like – Guatemala style! The funniest bit was the ladies teaching my friend how to hit on girls in Spanish (in a very polite, gentlemanly like manner, of course!)

The first step of the weaving process is picking out your colors and designing a pattern – Fun! The next step? Not so fun … here I am setting up the basic framework, which basically involved wrapping several hundered threads around this contraption. The real difficulty is keeping track of your pattern.

Here you can see a close up of my design. It was inspired by the traje (Mayan traditional dress) of the Ixil in Nebaj (check out this photo  to see what I’m talking about!)

Here I am actually weaving! If you really want to see it close up you can click to enlarge it, but I look pretty goofy – you’ve been warned! 

It took about 7 hours for me to finish a small sample cloth, now proudly draped over my sidetable. As soon as I get around to taking a photo I’ll add it to this post.

PS: if you’re heading to Xela, definitely check out Trama Textiles, you’ll be supporting a worker-owned women’s weaving association offering training to weaving cooperatives around Guatemala and enabling them to produce quality fair-trade textile goods. If you don’t have time to do a weaving course you can still purchase beautiful items from their shop at fair-trade prices. There are also volunteer opportunites and they can help arrange Spanish classes.