Spider Woman's Children: Navajo Weavers Today illustrates the beautiful and complex world of contemporary Navajo life, art and family - a world shaped by history and rich cultural traditions. It offers an intimate view into the life of today's Navajo weavers that will inspire and surprise. While many books have been written about Navajo weaving, techniques and style, non has highlighted the weavers themselves. Authors and sisters Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas are fifth-generation Navajo weavers, which lends an authentic and in-depth perspective to each story.

The unusual structure of shadow weave creates works that shimmer and glow with multifaceted dark-and-light color. How and why did the legendary weavers Mary Meigs Atwater and Marian Powell develop it? And how, exactly, does it work? Even better, how do you write shadow weave drafts of your own design? This guide provides the answers, with a focus on Marian Powell's method of weave drafting. With master weaver Rebecca Winter, learn the history of the intricacies of shadow weave and understand the weave structure and how it functions as a color-and-weave effect. The book takes up where the much-respected (and hard to find) 1976 classic by Marian Powell, 1000 (+) Patterns in 4, 6, and 8 Harness Shadow Weaves, leaves off, offering the translation and explanation that today's handweavers have been waiting for. It includes valuable resources that bring history and today's weavers together: the drafting system developed by Mary Meigs Atwater, the drafting system developed by Marian Powell, and how the the Powell method functions within block theory. Expand your weaving with included drafts-the five original drafts developed in 1942 by Mary Meigs Atwater, as well as 10 original drafts developed by the author. Handweavers of all levels, on eight or fewer shafts, can be confident this book will provide everything they need to know to advance their skills toward a clear understanding of shadow weave. Get ready to create your shadow weave gems.

For millennia, Native artists on Olympic Peninsula, in what is now northwestern Washington, have created coiled and woven baskets using tree roots, bark, plant stems--and meticulous skill. "From the Hands of a Weaver" presents the traditional art of basket making among the peninsula's Native peoples--particularly women--and describes the ancient, historic, and modern practices of the craft. Abundantly illustrated, this book also showcases the basketry collection of Olympic National Park.
Baskets designed primarily for carrying and storing food have been central to the daily life of the Klallam, Twana, Quinault, Quileute, Hoh, and Makah cultures of Olympic Peninsula for thousands of years. The authors of the essays collected here, who include Native people as well as academics, explore the commonalities among these cultures and discuss their distinct weaving styles and techniques. Because basketry was interwoven with indigenous knowledge and culture throughout history, alterations in the art over time reflect important social changes.
Using primary-source material as well as interviews, volume editor Jacilee Wray shows how Olympic Peninsula craftspeople participated in the development of the commercial basket industry, transforming useful but beautiful objects into creations appreciated as art. Other contributors address poaching of cedar and native grasses, and conservation efforts--contemporary challenges faced by basket makers. Appendices identify weavers and describe weaves attributed to each culture, making this an important reference for both scholars and collectors.
Featuring more than 120 photographs and line drawings of historical and twentieth-century weavers and their baskets, this engaging book highlights the culture of distinct Native Northwest peoples while giving voice to individual artists, masters of a living art form.

In the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, a large indigenous population lives in rural communities, many of which retain traditional forms of governance. In 1996, some 350 women of these communities formed a weavers' cooperative, which they called Jolom Mayaetik. Their goal was to join together to market textiles of high quality in both new and ancient designs. Weaving Chiapas offers a rare view of the daily lives, memories, and hopes of these rural Maya women as they strive to retain their ancient customs while adapting to a rapidly changing world. Originally published in Spanish in 2007, this book captures firsthand the voices of these Maya artisans, whose experiences, including the challenges of living in a highly patriarchal culture, often escape the attention of mainstream scholarship. Based on interviews conducted with members of the Jolom Mayaetik cooperative, the accounts gathered in this volume provide an intimate view of women's life in the Chiapas highlands, known locally as Los Altos. We learn about their experiences of childhood, marriage, and childbirth; about subsistence farming and food traditions; and about the particular styles of clothing and even hairstyles that vary from community to community. Restricted by custom from engaging in public occupations, Los Altos women are responsible for managing their households and caring for domestic animals. But many of them long for broader opportunities, and the Jolom Mayaetik cooperative represents a bold effort by its members to assume control over and build a wider market for their own work. This English-language edition features color photographs - published here for the first time - depicting many of the individual women and their stunning textiles. A new preface, chapter introductions, and a scholarly afterword frame the women's narratives and place their accounts within cultural and historical context.

Handwoven fabrics are the living history and cultural treasure of the Peruvian highlands. The weavers who create these extraordinary textiles are keepers of the culture and sustainers of a noble but difficult lifestyle in tune with the earth. Weaving in the Peruvian Highlands celebrates their authentic, well-crafted work by showing: Varied and distinctive styles of traditional clothing, the way the traditional crafts are passed from one generation to another, names and meaning of the myriad textile designs that reflect the culture and history of the people, and rituals and celebrations in which woven fabrics plays such an important role. Whether actually travelling to the Cusco region or armchair travelling, Weaving in the Peruvian Highlands is the essential guide to understanding and appreciating the area's wealth of textiles and charming, inventive weavers who create them. "The armchair traveller will be amazed at the variety of designs . . . An excellent choice for ethnic textile collections in academic and large public libraries." Library Journal

'A beautifully informative new book with only one flaw: its title is much too modest! It not only offers, in patient words and detailed pictures, a primer on ancient inca spinning and textile-making, it also spins a tale of ancient heritage and living craft. The book's generous sharing of textile knowledge deeply enriches your own textile practice on many levels.' Anne Pollard Rowe, Research Associate of Indigenous American Textiles at The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C. Ten years after the publication of her seminal book Weaving in the Peruvian Highlands, Nilda Callanaupa Alvarez has gathered artisans of all ages to share their knowledge, lore, and deep skills, highlighting many of the techniques used by spinners, weavers, and knitters of the Andes. Concise step-by-step instructions and rich photography give readers the how-to of several textile secrets of the Peruvian highlands. Poignant and detailed descriptions of Andean cultural traditions frame each section, providing context and rare insight into what textile work means as a living heritage of the Quechua people. Callanaupa Alvarez pays special recognition to the Young Weavers Groups who are proudly carrying forward the textile traditions of their ancestors with ingenuity and innovation.

Easy to learn, portable, and lots of fun--that's weaving on peg looms and weaving sticks! This book introduces you to the craft and answers all of your questions.* 20+ projects, including dolls and toys, flowers and brooches, cowls, baskets and bowls* Gallery of woven pieces will inspire your own weaving creativity* Includes finishing techniques for these handheld weaving tools

The fundamental gesture of weaving in "The Craft of Zeus" is the interlacing of warp and woof described by Plato in "The Statesman"--an interweaving signifying the union of opposites. From rituals symbolizing--even fabricating--the cohesion of society to those proposed by oracles as a means of propitiating fortune; from the erotic and marital significance of weaving and the woven robe to the use of weaving as a figure for language and the fabric of the text, this lively and lucid book defines the logic of one of the central concepts in Greek and Roman thought--a concept that has persisted, woof and warp crossing again and again, as the fabric of human history has unfolded.