Chile, Artesanías de Chile Foundation, Traditional Baby Blanket

MEASUREMENTS 80 cm x 60 cm

MATERIALS Sheep wool. White with green brocado stripes
Carpet base is natural / Brocado stripes are naturally dyed (plants and roots)

Wool-hair knot technique, weaved in Vertical loom (called "Quelgo", in local language).

This traditional baby blanket with brocado was weaved by Teresa Hernández, a traditional weaver from Quemchi, a little village located in the northern east side of Chiloé Island, an amazing handrcraft spot located in the extreme south of Chile, in northern Patagonia.
It is one of the Chiloé textile pieces selected by Artesanías de Chile (Crafts of Chile Foundation) for 2020 Selvedege World Fair, considering this archipielago amazes with its singularities and cultural wealth.
The long time the island lived in total isolation from the rest of Chile made Chiloé people (called “chilotes”) generate their own culture.
Their textiles are the result of years of living in a rainy and cold climate, contacting only with what nature delivers and the ingenuity of its inhabitants to solve daily life.
In the Chilote houses, textiles were woven in “kelgwos” or “quelgo”, as they call a large horizontal loom built inhome, usualy in their living room.
Today, the tradition of weaving in kelgwo is kept by very few women and are scarcely transmitted to the new generations. One type of textile that barely persists -but it does moved by Fundación Artesanías de Chile- are the baby blankets, which are characterized by being plain weaved fabrics decorated with wool-hair knot or brocade framework.
Fundación Artesanías de Chile (Crafts of Chile Foundation) is a private non-profit entity who works to preserve Chilean cultural identity and create opportunities for traditional artisans, especially in rural locations.
Certified by World Fair Trade Organization (WTFO), we work with a network of artisans made up of 2.300 men and women from all over the country, repositories of cultural heritage of our country, imprint in each of their pieces. An important group of them lives in Chiloé Island.

It takes up to 1 month to make an item like this.

Available to ship 3 months after purchase.