Papito the Weaver

One of our favorite people in Ecuador is Papito. He is Susana´s father, and the nicest, happiest man I have ever met. I don´t think that any of us have ever seen him without a huge grin on his face. Papito is also a weaver, and an interesting one at that. He takes the discarded ends of cloth left over from higher volume clothes makers and brings it home. He then unravels all of the thread and re-spins it and weaves it into really cool, warm, and durable blankets. He has a hand loom that he runs, which (as you can see), barely fits into one of the rooms in his house. You can see the pedals under the loom that he pushes to switch the threads back and forth to make the blankets.

We really haven´t made a pitch for anyone´s business down here. but Papito will be the exception to the rule. He makes all of this from scratch, and on his hand loom. All of the blankets used by the family are made by Papito. And we love him. If anyone wants to buy one of these cool blankets, please let us know. They are $15.
















Here is Papito in place for work, showing the shuttle. Note the gigantic grin.
















So, if I am remembering correctly, he pushes the shuttle through that triangle made by the different layers of thread, then pushes the pedals to make the layers switch places, and they pushes the shuttle back from the other side. And again and again and again.




Here is the spindle that Papito uses to spin the thread (or yarn, I´m actually not sure which) to make the blankets.