Grandmother Power in Rural Thailand

We're excited to see the Kokkabok Group featured in the 2012 book by Paola Gianturco, GRANDMOTHER POWER: A Global Phenomenon. Paola contacted us to help her contact this grandmothers' weaving group after reading the article below. We were happy to help facilitate her visit in 2010. TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles works with many artisan groups made up of amazing grandmothers -- working to sustain their traditions, cultures, families and communities.

Off to Thailand and Laos to Meet the Artisans

December is the beginning of weaving season, so we're heading to Thailand and Laos to work once again with our artisan partners over the next few months. We'd like to introduce you to a few of the people with whom we work. These women (and one man) coordinate and collaborate with us on orders. Sometimes we meet in shops they are proud to own or rent; other times we meet them in their villages. They then work directly with the weavers on the making because they know best which woman enjoys weaving a particular design or who is known to make a special colour. The yarn creation, natural dyeing and weaving is usually done at home in the artisans' villages; other times it's done in community textile spaces.

Some of our partners speak English; many don't -- but this is not a barrier to communication, just a fun challenge. Between Alleson's Thai, the help of friends and photos of pieces we've ordered before, we manage just fine.

We're excited about our visits and continue to nurture these long-standing relationships, one of the pillars of fair trade. And as always, we plan to visit some new groups and explore working more closely together.

Our good friend Pii Yai and Alleson pose with staff at Panmai, a Thai women's weaving co-op. They specialize in silk weaving and are known for their natural dyeing skills.

Alleson offers a computer lesson to staff and board members at Prae Pan, another women's weaving co-op in Thailand. TAMMACHAT was birthed at Prae Pan's shop.

Alleson and Mai finish up work in the northern Thai village that's home to Junhom Bantan, a cotton weaving group.

Ellen wears one of this group's beautiful, mudmee (ikat) designed pieces. We originally met this group (and others in a cotton weaving network) through the Pattanarak Foundation; we now work with them through Napafai, a social enterprise near the Mekong River in Thailand.

Alleson and Aew of Napafai display the charming, organic cotton elephants we ordered.

We met the Ban Tho Fan Maetam Group at the first Asian Feminist Conference in northern Thailand.We are planning a visit to learn more about their work with 50 ethnic embroiderers in northeast Thailand.

TAMMACHAT was the first customer to work with this Eri silk weaving group in central Thailand. Fai Gaem Mai, the Cotton and Silk Project, introduced Eri silk creation as a development project in central and northern Thailand.

Warm Heart Foundation works with temple and village weavers in northern Thailand. Eri silk is their specialty.

We met these Paleung weavers at the Royal Project Fair in Chiang Mai. We hope to visit them in their 2 villages this trip.

Saoban Crafts, a social enterprise in Laos, is proud to work with 300 village women. They offer organic cotton, silk and bamboo woven products, plus jewellery.

These are just some of the groups we plan to visit. Subscribe to our blog posts to follow our trip. Or follow us on Facebook.

The Jacket Project: One-of-a-Kind Art Pieces

TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles is collaborating on a very special project that transforms fair trade, artisanal fabric from Thailand into one-of-a-kind jackets designed and sewn in Canada. We're thrilled with the first jackets, made with organic silks and handspun organic cottons.

The Jacket Project brings together TAMMACHAT co-founders Ellen Agger and Alleson Kase with Nova Scotian dressmaker Theresa Eagles to create unique jackets, each a work of art that connects women across the world. Two designs are available at TAMMACHAT's November 2012 shows in Nova Scotia.

For more info, see our original blog post -- The Jacket Project: Local Meets Fair Trade.

Organic silk jacket, dyed with stick lac,
featuring mudmee (ikat) panels and cuffs

Organic silk jacket, dyed with stick lac

Organic silk jacket in a natural, undyed cream

Organic silk jacket, dyed with stick lac,
featuring mudmee (ikat) accents.

Cotton mudmee design, using
a traditional Thai wrap skirt fabric

Organic silk jacket in gold,
created with coconut husk and undyed yarns

Organic silk jacket combining solid fabric,
dyed with rosewood, and a subtle earth tone fabric

Handspun, organic cotton, dyed with authentic indigo,
with mudmee accents

Handspun, organic cotton, dyed with authentic indigo,
with mudmee accents

Handspun, organic cotton, dyed with authentic indigo,
with mudmee accents

Handspun, organic cotton, dyed with authentic indigo,
with mudmee accents

Fresh, new handcrafted textiles now online

We're delighted to bring you fresh, new textiles from our recent trip in Thailand and Laos.  Now available on TAMMACHAT's website.

All our textiles are...Artisanal. Handwoven. Fair trade. Sustainable. Ethical. Eco.

Cotton Scarves and Shawls: handspun, chunky textures, organic cotton, lots of indigo.

Organic Silk Scarves: beautiful, beautiful, beautiful in a lovely range of colours.

 Eri Silk Scarves: handspun, textured, for women and men.

And the Blossom Travel Jewelry Pouch in Organic Silk is here and ready for you!

Drop by TAMMACHAT's website to find more offerings over the next few weeks. Follow us on Facebook  and Twitter for timely postings.

Saoban: development with a heart

The capital of Laos, Vientiane, is increasingly a city of contradictions. Our annual visits sound discordant notes that grow shriller with each new year. Gleaming luxury cars (this year I saw a Lotus!) park next to broken sidewalks that expose the stinking sewer beneath. I imagine an unwary tourist falling into one of these manhole-sized openings while gawking at the cake-like decorations that frost the Buddhist temples.

Tourists' cafe tables sprout bottles of Lao beer -- as tasty as it is cheap -- while Asean businessmen savour European wines. The menus of the newer restaurants in the old city centre boast bottles of wine that sell for $100 -- in a country where $50 will feed an impoverished family for a month.

Amidst these anomalies is the fair trade social enterprise that we've come to see. Saoban, meaning "village people," has grown out of earlier sustainability projects in the Lao countryside. Many of these were the work of a local NGO, the Participatory Development Training Centre (PADTEC).

Saoban ("Village Handicrafts From the Heart of Laos") now stands on its own feet, which ideally is the goal of all development projects. It works closely with village artisan groups in many regions of this diverse and mountainous country to provide training in business planning, product development, marketing, and access to micro-credit. In its Vientiane shop we see elaborate tapestry weaving, precious silver jewellery, intricate bamboo basketry and bags of many descriptions.

Saoban's Vientiane shop brimming with handcrafted products

We met Saoban in 2009 when they were establishing their store in Vientiane. That year we accompanied one of their young staff on a visit to a small village several hours outside Vientiane where the women weave intricate bamboo baskets. We were impressed with everything we saw, especially the absence of toxic chemicals often used to produce bamboo fibres. Together we designed a bag that combined the villagers' basket-making skills with indigo cotton produced by another village and sewn by a third group. We also arranged for a Big Brother Mouse book party in the village later that year (and provided the funds for same.)

This year, however, we have come to find products woven from organic cotton dyed with natural indigo. In planning for this visit, we had a meeting on Skype (amazing that we can do some of this work from afar), while we sat in Chiang Mai, Thailand and Bandith Ladpakdy, Saoban's Manager, spoke to us from the shop in Vientiane.

softly draping, handspun organic cotton indigo shawl

We're delighted to find that we do not need to make a special order: on the shop's shelves we find almost everything that we had imagined we might design together. iPad pouches in indigo cotton yarn dyed with mudmee (ikat) designs are displayed almost exactly as we had imagined them! The heritage variety of organic cotton used is inter-planted with upland crops of indigo, corn, beans and chilies. The weaving is done in Central Laos, in an area known for its indigo dyeing. Products like these are then sewn by an urban sewing group in Vientiane, where most of the women work at home.

quilted iPad sleeves in organic cotton

Nubbly, handspun organic cotton scarves and shawls in an assortment of naturally dyed colours are nestled into a large bamboo basket that greets us as we walk in the door.

organic cotton scarves in a handwoven bamboo basket

There are even 2 extraordinary handspun organic cotton shawls, yarn-dyed with traditional mudmee designs in a beautiful mid-range shade of indigo.

rich traditional mudmee design in handspun organic cotton

We spend 2 afternoons at the shop. This is the first opportunity we've had to get to know Shui-Meng Ng, who has worked in development with rural Lao families for decades and is now serving as the Managing Director of the independent enterprise that Saoban has become.

Bandith helps village weavers and dyers organize themselves into groups, select their leaders, learn about business planning and how to set realistic, fair prices for their work. Through his work with more than 300 artisans in 14 villages, he is becoming an important local resource. Bandith is also a key figure in a new Lao Fairtrade association formed by and for Lao social enterprises to support each other and learn about fair trade together.

The Saoban team: Bandith, a volunteer from Australia, Shui-Meng and Samoy

While our focus for this visit has been on handspun, indigo organic cotton, we are also keen to learn that village-based organic silk production is again on the rise after decades of dwindling resources and practitioners. This news prompts us to add to our shopping list an elegant but simply designed silk scarf  in naturally dyed shades of gleaming, burnished metals.

hand-reeled organic silk with weft bands from the looser, outer fluff of the cocoons

We look forward to continue building our relationship with Saoban and visiting some of the more remote villages with Bandith in coming years. Until then, we are anxious to share our indigo Laotian treasures, and a bit more, with fans in Canada.

Also: See our video about a Weaving Bamboo Baskets in Laos.

Alleson

Fairtrade organic cotton along the Mekong

Stuffed elephant cushions, bags, table cloths, jackets,bucket hats, zippered pouches – these are a few of the handwoven cotton products made with cloth created by women in Thailand's Ubon Ratchathani province.

organic cotton elephants stuffed with organic kapok!

They make many of these products from handspun, organic cotton, grown along the banks of the Mekong River that divides Thailand from Laos, when the river levels are low in cool and dry seasons, revealing fertile land. It is perfect for growing the cotton, its companion plant indigo – the leaves of which yield the well-known, deep blue indigo dye – and vegetable crops ranging from leaf lettuces, green onions and cilantro to animal feed crops like corn.

organic cotton on the banks of the Mekong River

In 2009, we spent 2 weeks with Aew, who worked with village groups of organic cotton farmers, spinners, dyers and weavers for more than 15 years. We documented and celebrated the Pattanarak Foundation's Organic Cotton Project in a photo book, Weaving Sustainable Communities: Organic Cotton Along the Mekong. (Preview it free online.)

The project ended but Aew, deeply rooted with these artisan groups, started a small, fair trade social enterprise, Napafai, to continue to offer them markets in nearby urban centres, such as Ubon.

Alleson and Aew from Napafai

We met up with Aew in her hometown of Ubon, where she also works for another Thai non-governmental organization, to learn more about her ongoing work with these artisans. She now works as a volunteer board member for the Nong Peun Noi Product Training Centre, where the skilled artisans taught us how they gin and fluff cotton, spin it by hand, dye it with local natural dyes, tie-dye their mudmee (ikat) patterns and weave cloth on traditional floor looms.

tyeing the pattern before dyeing

the tie-dyed indigo mudmee

At this centre, the area artisans receive training – such as the 3-day training in sewing bags that was going on during our visit with Aew – and train school groups and other artisan groups in their centre, passing along their skills.

Nong Peun Noi Product Training Centre

We love the stuffed elephants (sold here as cushions, but equally delightful as sweatshop-free toys) and ordered them in a variety of colours, including bold checks and stripes! (Who says all elephants are grey?) We were excited to find 4 pieces of mudmee cloth in intense indigo blue, woven with a handspun organic cotton weft (crossways yarns) and we ordered small zippered pouched in a finer indigo mudmee cloth.

mudmee zippered pouches --
perfect for notions, change, iPod or phone

a finely patterned mudmee cotton cloth

A quilt with organic cotton batting intrigued us too. Cloth made from fine cotton yarns was loosely woven then 2 layers were stuffed with cotton after its seeds were removed using a handcarved, hand-cranked, traditional cotton gin and fluffed with another traditional tool.

removing seeds with traditional wooden cotton gin

fluffing cotton before spinning it

organic cotton batting in a handwoven quilt cover

We look forward to visiting Napafai's new shop – in the planning stages – and seeing continued opportunities for these artisans to market their work, especially important for the middle-aged and older women whose work with cloth brings much-needed income to their families.

#13: Organic Silk in Laos

[This is our last post from our 2009-2010 trip.]

Laos — a small, landlocked, mountainous country wedged between China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma — was once home to some of the best weavers in the world, masters of discontinuous supplementary weft, as detailed and ornate as European tapestry.

However, during the "Vietnam" war, American B52s rained cluster bombs over Laos — more bombs per capita than in any other conflict until the 2003 bombing of Baghdad. Lao people were forced to flee their homes and their villages, often taking refuge in caves for years while the war raged on. Understandably, much was lost, materially and culturally.

At the close of the war in 1975, life expectancy, literacy and per capita GNP in Laos were ranked some of the lowest in the world. In the last 20 years, with much international assistance, Laos has slowly climbed to 133 on the United Nations’ Human Development Index of 182 countries.

In an effort to support women and rural communities in these changes, we ride 11 long and crowded hours on a 2nd class bus through the mountains of Central Laos.

When we arrive tired but safely in Xieng Khuang, we are warmly greeted by Kommaly Chanthavong, visionary and founder of Lao Sericulture Company. Two years ago we purchased some beautiful scarves made by them. This year we have made a special order, rather than purchase stock on hand at their shop in Vientiane, so we’ve come to see for ourselves where and how it will be made.

"We work for our producers," Kommaly tells us early in our 3-day visit. As the visit unfolds, the importance of this simple statement becomes clear. This fair trade enterprise works with hundreds of families in this and neighbouring provinces.

Sǔan Món – Mulberry Farm – becomes our home base. It’s a demonstration organic farm and a centre for research and training. It’s also home to a large but low-tech sericulture facility where silkworms are raised, new varieties are bred and silk yarns created. The farm also includes a weaving and dyeing centre, where most of Lao Sericulture’s natural dyeing takes place.

Acres of mulberry bushes, heavily but carefully pruned, now fill fields where once only sugar cane grew. Mulberry leaves are the natural diet of silkworms, which only eat them fresh. We walk through the fields, nibbling not leaves but fresh mulberries, which are also used to make a range of purple dyes. Lao Sericulture is also developing mulberry wine as a new product. Not surprisingly, Lao Sericulture silk scarves are marketed under the brand name Mulberries.

Lao Sericulture has a long-term lease on the land from the local government. In fact, the government invited Kommaly here to work with local village groups to reduce poverty by providing training and markets for sericulture, natural dyeing and weaving. When villagers come to the farm for training, they are taught the entire cycle of silk creation as it is practiced organically and sustainably by Lao Sericulture.

The scope of the operation impresses us both. We begin our visit with the cows, whose manure is a main component of the rich compost that feeds the mulberry plants. "This is where it all starts," Kommaly tells us as she explains that many of the villagers receive a cow, as well as training, and later return a calf to the farm so that the practice can be sustained.

Kommaly goes on to tell us that 21 people will have their hands in the production of each of the silk scarves we’ve ordered. It’s easy to believe, as we visit a herd of cows, a large composting operation, and fields and fields of mulberry bushes: all of which are cared for by people rather than machines. We also go into the silk rearing houses where 4 different kinds of silkworms are carefully raised – without chemicals. During our visit they sit empty, however, as winters on the plateau of Xieng Khuang, although pleasantly cool for us Canadians, are too chilly for Bombyx mori – the cultivated silkworm – which prefer a consistent, warm temperature around 28˚.

In one workshop, we watch the reeling and finishing of silk yarns. In another, we see dye pots filled with mulberry fruits, indigo, stick lac insect resin, leaves of all sorts, even mud. All of them simmer away on custom-made, fuel-efficient stoves that burn coarse sawdust from a nearby mill that processes hardwood timber.

At the end of the first day, we visit the workshop where skilled weavers realize captivating designs based on traditional patterns as well as the images and colours that occur to Kommaly as she gazes at her favourite view. "My studio," she says, as she sweeps her hand towards the expanse of fields rising to distant mountains.

This is impressive and important work, especially on the scale in which it’s undertaken, but what strikes us most is what we see the next day when we travel to 2 of the villages that are also part of the Lao Sericulture network. Villages like these are where the scarves we’ve ordered will begin life, as they’ll be woven with traditional Lao silk raised in small village households. Unlike the weaving groups in Thailand with whom we work, these households most often participate in only 1 step of the process – in this case, the production of silk yarns.

We drive 2 hours – more than half of the time on an unusually narrow and badly fissured, unpaved road. Before it was built a few years ago, Kommaly and her husband walked 5 to 6 hours along a dirt path to visit these villagers. While travel is much easier now, it’s still true that silk is an ideal cash crop for remote villagers, as it has a high value relative to its weight or volume. It can also be stored, waiting for transportation or customers, without spoiling.

As well as providing income within this village, Lao Sericulture has helped the villagers build sand and rock water filters and better toilets. Together these projects have greatly improved health in the village. But despite the new road and activities like those of Lao Sericulture, we see deep poverty throughout the area. Most people in Laos are subsistence farmers but here we see bomb craters in what are now fields. We also see green onions and mint planted in bomb casings that recall the haunting exhibit we saw in Vientiane at the office of COPE (the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise.) Obviously, it’s a long road to recovery when you’ve been bombed back to the Stone Age, as some have said of Laos.

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A week later we pick up our order at Mulberries’ shop in Vientiane. The traditional Lao silk gives the scarves a nubbly texture similar to the feel of linen but richer – a bit like the way lanolin makes wool so different from cotton. The colours we’ve chosen for the 2 designs in this year’s collection are gorgeous: pearled blue, eggplant, ruby red, sapphire, thatch, leaf green. We’re fascinated that each group with whom we work produces such a different palette, based on the plants that grow well in their region, and their own traditions and skills in creating natural dyes.

Lao Sericulture is proud of its work and its recognition as a fair trade enterprise by the World Fair Trade Organization. Kommaly has received international awards for her designs and she was one of the 1000 peacewomen nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. But we sense that most important to her is the reward of helping reduce poverty in northeast Laos while reviving traditional skills that were almost lost. We’re pleased to play a small part in that recovery, and proud to bring these artisanal and sustainable fashions to the West.

Ellen & Alleson