Museo Ixchel: Part I

My friend and I went to the Museo Ixchel in Guatemala City on Saturday morning. This museum is dedicated to Guatemalan textiles - history, technique, materials, etc. I really enjoyed it! Here are some of the photos I took of the "tools of the weaving trade".

Museo Ixchel, on the campus of Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City. It was a really lovely campus.

Men weave large pieces of cloth -- such as those made for bedspreads and cortes (skirts) -- on the foot loom. Here you can see details of the threads, including the ones dyed in the ikat/jaspe method (tie-dying!). The weavers know how to use these threads to come out with designs in the finished cloth.

A small loom used for making cintas (ribbons) for the hair

Designs are sketched on cloth with pencil before being sewn.

Embroidering details by hand (here, a huipil is stretched over a collander)

Embroidering details using a sewing machine


For Part II, I'll show some of the output of these processes!