As a single mother of two, Santos needed a way to provide for her family. She joined a Friendship Bridge Trust Bank and received loan capital to start a small weaving business. Santos weaves on a backstrap loom and creates products including table runners, huipiles, belts, scarves, and shawls. She also makes jewelry, bookmarks, coasters, and does some embroidery. Recently, Santos learned to dye threads in the jaspe tradition and is using jaspe and natural dyes to create beautiful scarves. Always enthusiastic about learning new techniques, Santos is optimistic and the future of her business and her family.

Jaspe

Jaspe and natural dye process

In this technique, more broadly called the Ikat technique, artisans tie hundreds of very small strings in knots around thread bundles, then place the bundles in dye before weaving on either a back strap loom or a foot loom. The locations of the knots are carefully calculated to create specific designs in the finished cloth. Jaspe is most commonly done on the warp threads, although you can sometimes find it on the weft threads, and sometimes on both the warp and the weft of a woven item (usually a corte).