Traditional Weaver - Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez - The Communities
Come with us on a tour of four communities: Pitumarca,
Chahuaytiri (left), Chinchero and Aacha Alta. In each community,
weavers are reviving their ancient traditions with the help of
Nilda and her Center. These communities are within a couple of
hours driving distance from Cusco, in the southern highlands of
Peru. In each place, Quechua-speaking women and men meet weekly.
In a shelter built by the CTTC, they spin, weave and knit. Nilda
visits regularly (often with her husband Paulino) to buy
textiles for the Center, to give encouragement, and to
experiment with dyeing processes. In Pitumarca, weavers practice
the ancient technique of discontinuous warp (called t'iqulla in
Quechua), a skill once thought to have disappeared. In most
textiles, the warp yarn is continuous throughout the length of
the cloth. However, in some ancient Peruvian textiles, the warp
is discontinuous for the sake of patterning. This means the warp
yarns turn back at the poin