Mexican Textile Techniques

More than four and a half centuries have passed since the Spanish Conquest, yet Mexico is still inhabited by nearly sixty Indian peoples. Many wear highly distinctive costumes and use textile skills inherited from the ancient civilisations of the Aztec and the Maya. Traditional fibres such as cotton and agave fibre are still spun with a spindle and woven on the backstrap loom. Cloth may be elaborately brocaded, gauze-woven to resemble lace, or intricately warp-patterned. This book considers the principal fibres used in modern Mexico and methods of preparation. There is a section on dyes and dyeing procedures such as ikat. Weaving techniques are described in detail, together with methods for embellishing finished cloth such as embroidery and appliqueacute;. The final chapter concentrates on the wide range of garments which are still worn in contemporary Indian Mexico. About the author Chloeuml; Sayer has been researching Mexican arts and crafts, especially costume, since 1973, and she has worked as a freelance television researcher in Mexico and Spain for Channel 4 and the BBC. She was awarded a travelling fellowship in 1978 by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and has mounted exhibitions of Mexican ethnography in London at the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Horniman Museum.