Trying silly things

For the past few days we’ve been in Michoacán, a state famous for it’s many traditional crafts. Every village has its own specialty and makes things that can’t be found anywhere else. The first time here we visited the craft center in Morelia (the state’s capital) and we were enchanted with the lace-like textiles we found there. They were from the town of Aranza and were made on a waist loom in a very particular way, where the weaver manually twists and turns the threads of the warp to form the patterns. 

Señora Laura is the best weaver in town and we’ve been working with her for almost a year now. She’s used her traditional techniques to create some incredible pieces with our plastic yarns. However, we believe that the way to sustain traditions is not to keep everything exactly as it is. Traditions should evolve with the time and with the people who perform them and we wanted to ask señora Laura if she’d be up for a new experiment. 

We brought her quirky colour combinations and designs for patterns that used them more randomly instead of very evenly as is customary. Señora Laura couldn’t suppress a little giggle when she saw what we had in mind, but she was willing to give our silly plans a go. She’ll try to translate the colored patterns I suggested to her own lace patterns, to have a double pattern on each piece. We’ll return in a few days to see how she’s getting on with it and wether we need to make adjustments to the design.