Hasta luego!: Dyeing in Chinchero

As if organising this adventure and actually getting ourselves out to Chinchero on our own (Sophie and I went ahead) wasn't exhilarating enough, our day spent with Hillaria and her family was a real treat. It was such a privilege to be welcomed into their home and to be shown the whole process but Sophie was over the moon at being shown the traditional ways of dyeing fibres using natural dyes. She's keen to try things out back home. Of course the materials may be different, but as Hillaria says, 'The process is the same, just experiment with materials.'

Everywhere we seem to go is UP, and this trip was no different. Hillaria's daughter, Elizabeth, had explained that Hillaria would pick us up at our accommodation. In my mind, I thought.... she either drives or will be in a taxi. Wrong. Hillaria was there to meet us ... on foot ... and carrying 3 large bags of materials for the day's work. So began the uphill walk to her family home!!!

The home consisted of mud brick buildings enclosed in mud brick walls and the dyeing was to take place in the back yard (weather permitting). Other family members (mum, a brother and a sister) were also there for the day's work.

Once the pots of water were on (Hillaria's brother took care of fires all day), our first task was to collect plants for the process. We collected leaves from a particular plant with a Quechan name for green dye, and yellow flowers from another for yellow dye, although this was to be supplemented with dried flowers of the same variety.

Back to the house and it was all systems go. Huge amount of leaves were added to the pot. Wool was wound into large skeins and added to the pot.

Pots were kept boiling for several hours before the wool was lifted out. It's amazing to see how tangled it was with leaves, twigs, flowers etc, and other skeins ... and then to see how easily it all shook out. Unbelievable.

Unbelievable to think that all these colours come from plants!!! But we have seen at least some of it.

Sophie has been invited back to learn about more colours....

Nothing was wasted. Throughout the day as one lot of fibre was removed from the pot, more ingredients were added to pots to revitalize the dye and produce a slightly different colour.

Red was very interesting - it doesn't come from a plant, but from the cochineal bug, expensive to buy so they really get the most out of it. Dried cochineal bugs are ground using well worn, very old tools... family heirlooms for sure!

First use of this ingredient produces a rich colour...

But other colours can be made from this fibre, by soaking it in baby's urine!!!! Can't imagine how they discovered that secret ingredient.

So the day progressed, adding various ingredients - plants and minerals to produce and fix a whole range of colours.

We were shown various other processes throughout the day....

scraping a root to produce a sudsy liquid for washing fleeces and fibres. Apparently also excellent for washing your hair - keeps it shiny and never goes grey!!! Maybe I should have had some of that years ago.

Spinning.... this was a sight too. Hillaria hacked some fleece from a hide with a knife, and then proceeded to spin it using a small wooden tool often seen around these areas. Amazing to see it being wound from a lump of dirty fleece into spun fibre!!!

Hillaria's mum was using a backstrap loom to make belts. She sat on a sheepskin on the dirt floor in the building that served as their kitchen / dining area.