Dyeing workshop in Chinchero...

One of the highlights of my trip so far is the dyeing workshop that Mum organised with a lady I met in a shop early in my trip - blogged here... I've been writing and re-writing this post in my head and just don't know how I can do it justice but I'm going to give it a go....

Hillaria (pronounced Illardia) our teacher (3rd from the left) met us at our hostel on Sunday morning and walked us to her family's house (up hill - everything is up hill!) where we met some of her 11 brothers and sisters and her mother who are all involved in the family business of dyeing and weaving - all generations of the family learn the skills of dyeing, knitting, weaving and braiding.

 To say it was a SPECTACULAR day just doesn't cut it!  It was simply awesome of Hillaria's family to welcome us in and share their skills with us.  They were even apologetic that they couldn't show us more!

First Hillaria took us out to collect leaves and flowers for out dyeing... Most of the names are Quechuan so all I can recall is Ch'llka for the green.

When we got back Hillardia's brother had the pots boiling ready for our dyeing.

And we set about adding leaves, flowers, grinding cochineal, making skeins, stirring pots and just getting involved in everything!

What was great to see was how efficient they are with everything... dyepots were used, and then revitalised and then combined with others and then revitalised again until the dyes were exhausted.

We worked with the family all day from 9am until about 5pm.  When it rained we went inside to the kitchen - a simple mudbrick construction with very minimal furnishings.  Even the stock of ingredients was small.

We watched Hillaria's mum weaving a belt using the backstrap loom...

and admired our efforts hanging on the line...

There are many, many more pictures in the slideshow below (or if that doesn't work, then go here)....