IN SEARCH OF PONCHOS

Last year Jim and I got acquainted with a wonderful woman named Maria at the Casa Mujeres (now called CEMUART) handicraft market. We bought several rugs from her, and also Jim bought his fabulous poncho from her. She made them herself from lovely wool in natural colors. Here's Jim posing with his poncho, purchased last year from Maria.

Since we have been back this year we have been on a mission to buy some more ponchos and went 3 or 4 times to her stall but she wasn't there. Finally Nancy and I went to check it out one more time and there she was! It was so great to see her again and she gave me a big hug. Here she is last year, posing for me in her village's native dress.

She did, indeed, have some lovely ponchos and I decided on one right away. However, she also had some wonderful rugs, one of which both Nancy and I were eying.

Here's the poncho, and the rug in question.


However, neither of us had room for the rug because it was fairly long. She told us that she could cut it in half and stitch the raw edge to make a smaller rug. This would make two front door mat-sized rugs, which is more the size we were after.

Meantime, a cool looking indian man in a leather hat arrived and seemed to know everyone. He was greeted warmly and seemed to be selling headbands he had made out of what looked like painted paper and parrot feathers. He stayed for at least 15 minutes making a deal with Maria and she eventually purchased a small group of the headbands for (I think) $1 each.

While this was going on, Nancy and I had a chance to decide to each have 1/2 of the rug and we told her to go ahead and cut it in half. Here is Maria's assistant about to cut the rug into two pieces. Notice the big wad of wool in Maria's hands.

We didn't realize that she would also be spinning the thread first, before stitching the edge of the rug to finish it. She used a drop spindle to spin the thread.

I think this color of wool is lovely.

Here Maria's assistant has the newly spun thread and has threaded the needle, preparing to stitch the edging.

Maria is helping her straighten out the thread, which tends to get wound up with itself.

After she had enough thread made, Maria started sewing the other rug edge.

This smile is why we keep coming back to her, aside from the fact that she weaves absolutely stunning rugs, ponchos and scarves.

And a bonus, we discovered that she is from the village that we went through last week on our way to and from Loja, Saraguro, which is where the men wear black short pants. Maria told us that Saraguro is a Quechua word and means people of the corn (or corn worm - I am not quite certain).

What a wonderful experience, and all because I was in search of a poncho. By the way, she also sells wonderful bead, seed and bone jewelry. I think Maria is my favorite vendor in Cuenca!

Tomorrow we are off to the beach at Machala for a few days so we will be out of computer touch until Friday. More about that adventure when we get back.

Audrey