Chinchero: Part Two

Congratulations! You have waited until today to read this post! I bet you are sitting on the edge of your seat because you are so excited to hear what we did….

After our farming activity, we went to the family’s workshop to learn how to weave alpaca, sheep and llama wool.

When we arrived at the workshop, we looked at all of the handmade things they had woven. Everything was beautiful! There were colourful hats, scarves,mitts, socks, table cloths, bags and a lot more!

They also brought in two alpacas. The difference between an alpaca and a llama, is that llamas have big ears, their necks are longer, and the tail is pointing up. The alpacas are the opposite.

The two alpacas

A llama

Then it was time for lunch! The family cooked an amazing lunch with 2 different kinds of soups and more! It was delicious!

Having lunch with the family

Serving ourselves at lunch

Lunch time!

After lunch, we started working on the threads and natural dyes.

The first thing you have to do is wash the wool. In this case, we used sheep wool which was really dirty. The family uses a special root that they call ” Inca Shampoo” to wash all of their wool. First they grated part of the root and mixed it with hot water until it was soapy.  When they finished washing the wool, it was super clean.

Grating the root

All soapy

Washing the wool

Dirty wool on the left and clean on the right

Inca shampoo is natural and useful, but one can only find it by climbing up a mountain and hiking for three hours. Once you have the root and you return home, you will probably want to use your Inca shampoo right away!

After washing the wool and drying it, the ladies showed us how they spin the wool into thread.

Spinning the wool into thread

Spinning wool while walking

Next they dyed the wool with natural dyes. These dyes were made out of leaves, flowers, insects, peppers, berries and many more things mixed with hot water and then left to boil.

All of the supplies needed

The dyed string drying

Purple with insects

Orange

Green

Yellow

Dark orange

Grey

Green

Purple

Brown

Explaing the dyes

The working area

The ones we made after they were done soaking

After the dyeing process, it was time to start weaving. The ladies showed us how to make the loom for a belt and let us try weaving.  It was fun!

Making the loom

My mom on the loom

Mikhaila on the loom

Me on the loom

Then they let each of us make a bracelet to take home.

After all of the weaving, my parents bought socks, mittens and hat-scarves to stay warm for our upcoming trek. The clothing is so warm and comfortable!

It was a really fun day and reminded me of other places we have seen, such as the silk weaving in Vietnam and the lotus silk weaving in Cambodia. This one was very different because everything was made by hand and not a large loom.

Working on the loom

Close up

Beautiful weaving

We had a great day meeting the family and learning all about their ways of life. It was really interesting and a lot of fun!

P.S. Don’t worry, I wont leave you on a cliff hanger again…  For now. 🙂