Plain weave

Coastal Ecuadorians have at least a 4000 year history of weaving with cotton-- hammocks, bags, and cloths made on a vertical loom, which in today's rural bamboo house is suspended from a hardwood cross-beam and fixed with an adjustable rope underneath the bamboo floor. Here you see the Master Weaver, Trinidad Catagua Párraga from the village of Zapote, Manabí province setting up the heddles to weave a patterned design. She is the only weaver in the entire province who is currently active in this craft, fashioning items out of hand-spun cotton in both plain weave and patterned weave. It is her patterning techniques which are especially interesting. These techniques were part of the cultural inventory of the best weavers in the region 34 years ago when I first befriended Trinidad. Today, she is the last weaver who is keeping these techniques alive. The upcoming generation of women have no interest in learning this craft. In fact, one girl told Trinidad outright that she "rather starve than learn how to weave." Spinning and weaving represent an old-fashioned past of poor peasants families. In the first segment, Trinidad is setting up the heddles of a alternating float weave design using paired yarns--fixing each heddle to a pattern stick on each of the six rows that this design requires. In the second segment, we see her weaving. Note that she must pull each heddle stick towards her in order to bring the floats forward on a particular row. The use of pattern heddle sticks is <b>...</b>