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Carrying Cloth
Q'ero is located approximately 100 miles east of Cuzco in the south of Peru. This carrying cloth was made to carry one's lunch to the fields. The food was placed in the center, two diagonal corners were folded in, and the final two corners were tied to keep the contents secure. Lunch was eaten during the first break from work in the fields, and consisted of toasted maize kernels and boiled chunu (freeze-dried potatoes). This cloth is a single loom panel, woven with undyed alpaca yarn, with
a few narrow red, pink and black stripes along the edges. The undyed areas
have "spin stripes," created by alternating the spin direction
of the yarn. In order to create the four color blocks, the weaver used
a discontinuous warp. Instead of running the entire length of the textile,
the warp yarns of each color turn around a single weft in the center,
creating the dovetailed-warp join in the middle of the textile.
Each month we will highlight a different textile from the Museum's collection. |
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