#4: Pa Ao Weaving Group: silk specialists

Two years ago, we rented a motorbike in the small city of Ubon Ratchathani, close to the Mekong River in Thailand's Northeast, and made our way -- with the help of a map and a hunch -- to Ban Pa Ao, a village known for its fine quality of silk weaving. When we found the village, we found it home to a large, village-based women's weaving group. We had also hoped to find naturally dyed silks there and were not disappointed.

This group is one of many that has received OTOP recognition. OTOP -- One Tamboon, One Product -- is a program started many years ago by a previous government. It gives star ratings to products that range from foods to simple handicrafts to superb textiles, designating products considered outstanding in each district. The Pa Ao Weaving Group, which also refers to itself as Glum Satrii (Homemakers' Group), has received 4 and 5 star OTOP ratings in past years for its superlative weaving.

On that first visit, we bought several naturally dyed silk scarves from the group's village shop. Unlike any designs we'd seen before, these scarves showcased mudmee designs (the tie-dyeing of the thread prior to weaving) with a seldom-seen contemporary flare.


We had hoped to meet this group again at last year's OTOP fair in Bangkok. Remarkably, we did find the group amongst the hundreds of stalls at last year's fair but they didn't have the scarves we were searching for and we were unable to describe them well enough to make an order.





Which brings this post to yesterday, when we set out on another rented motorbike in search of these unusual scarves. We arrived in the early afternoon to find 3 very helpful women at the Ban Pa Ao weaving shop but not the elusive scarves.

Rather than trying to persuade us to consider the conventionally dyed scarves that some of their members continue to produce, the staff took the opportunity to bring out some extraordinary, handwoven, naturally dyed silk fabrics that are available by the metre. We couldn't resist buying 5 particularly beautiful pieces (3 of which are shown below). These will be available upon our return home to Canada in April.

This piece has an amazing sheen with small vertical stripes. It's dyed with indigo and coconut husks soaked until the colour leaches into the water.







This piece is woven in a delicate flower pattern called dok pikhuun. It has a soft gray colour that is created with a dried fruit that is then boiled, pounded and soaked until the dye bath is ready.







This piece has a delicate shimmer obtained with jackfruit wood, another wood called prahot and coconut husk. The colours are made stronger by the addition of sai bua in which the silk yarns are soaked for a few days. It uses a mudmee design in the umber and pale green stripes, twisted threads and a white weft (cross-wise threads), which gives the shimmer.




Because we follow a fair trade model, we wanted to learn not just about these production details but also about the group which has mastered them: the group with whom we are working to establish a relationship. Here's some of what we've learned:

• The group was started 22 years ago.
• Ten years ago, it had 75 members and has since grown to 108, all local Pa Ao village residents.
• Group members use chemical dyes and natural dyes, particularly local materials like kram (indigo), lac (which produces lovely pinks and reds) and magrua (ebony black). They have since learned to dye with other natural materials, such as coconut and jackfruit wood.
• All dye materials are gathered locally.

At the group's shop and weaving centre, we were shown samples of dye materials and silk yarns that had been dyed with them. Here you see Alleson and Nan, a group member, looking at samples of natural dye baths prepared by local students.

Our visit was not quite what we had expected but this is always part of the fun. Thanks to Alleson's ability to speak Thai, we learned more about the group and how they make such delicate colours using natural dyes from their local environment. Thanks also to her ability to read Thai (albeit slowly), we also learned the Thai names of several dye materials new to us.

Each new word helps us communicate better with the Thai weavers from whom we buy textiles. (My Thai is still rudimentary but my ability to understand and speak grows slowly, but daily, as we travel.) Being able to communicate, even a little, with the weavers enriches our understanding of their traditions and practices. It also allows us to bring you more stories about the creation of these incredible fibre arts.

Nok Noi (aka Ellen)

#3: Prae Pan Group in Thailand

In our last post we affirmed our desire to support the highly skilled women who continue their tradition of creating silk and cotton yarn, natural dyeing and hand weaving despite the challenges posed by globalized modernization and the current economic downturn.

A case in point was our recent visit to the Prae Pan Group in Khon Kaen, Thailand, which we first visited 4 years ago. They still produce beautiful weaving, still have an impressive inventory of finished pieces and still have an active storefront in Khon Kaen, which is Thailand's 4th largest city. However, despite 2 decades of success, this group is finding it increasingly difficult to stay afloat.

Khon Kaen, by the way, is one of our favorite Thai cities. There's a large park with a small lake in town that Ellen is happy to walk around every morning and a large number of tasty noodle shops and khaow mun gai stalls where we can have cheap and tasty meals. It appears that very few tourists visit Khon Kaen, which may help explain why most people there are extremely welcoming to us. However, this also means that there are very few tourists, foreign or Thai, visiting the Prae Pan shop. It's not surprising that sales are down.

The bulk of the people in Khon Kaen province are rice farmers who live outside the provincial capital. More and more often, their young people are moving to urban areas where they can experience urban life and modern trends. At the same time, many factories are opening in the rural provinces where there's a surplus of labourers accustomed to hard work and low wages. All of these reasons add up to a growing pessimism whether rural women's groups like Prae Pan are actually sustainable and whether younger women will have learned the necessary skills to continue the tradition before their mothers and grandmothers are no longer available to teach them.

Consequently, we've decided this year to focus our selection of Prae Pan's work on a traditional style of khit weaving (using supplementary wefts), which the group's board members tell us may not be available in the coming years. We've selected ancestral patterns with design qualities that transcend their original meanings so to be appreciated by those outside the culture which produced them. We've also chosen sizes and colours that are well-suited to decorate tables, chests and dressers. We hope you'll agree.

Pii Plaa (aka Alleson)

#2: The future of handweaving in Thailand

[Photo: Alleson and Pii Yai -- who has been working in rural development for decades and who has been advising one of the weaving co-ops we have been working with for several years -- enjoying a walk in Loei province.]



One of our goals for this trip is to get a sense of where handweaving is going in Thailand. We've been discussing this with our Thai friends and some of the weavers we meet. The conversation is never a simple one as the topic is situated in the larger issue of industrialization and modernization in a 'globalized' world. And, of course, as elsewhere in the world, the global economic downturn is affecting people in Thailand.




An article in the Dec. 21, 2008 Bangkok Post (Thailand's biggest English-language daily newspaper) caught our attention and confirmed what our friends here have been telling us for some time. Entitled "Growing debt forcing rice farmers to put their farmlands up for sale," the article discussed how skyrocketing rice prices did not offset the rising costs of farming (higher production costs, including fertilizer, pesticides* and land rental costs) because most of the price rise went to millers, wholesalers and exporters.

At the same time, everyone in Thailand eats rice as their staple food, so any increase in the price of rice results in inflation across-the-board. So, almost everything has gone up in price -- except factory wages where, instead, there have been significant layoffs, especially in the auto (and related) industry.

The director-general of Thailand's Rice Department said that "in order to find a way out of their debts, many people have decided to sell their farmlands and leave the villages for the cities in search of jobs in the hope of finding a better future."

Most of the weaving groups we buy from are village-based groups, which means they primarily make their living by farming, usually farming rice.

The future of handweaving in Thailand is very much connected with these trends. Fewer and fewer women in the villages are continuing to weave. Some are leaving the villages for waged labour. Younger women are not continuing their foremothers' weaving traditions for a number of reasons, including a drive to modernization that values this work less. The cost of materials is rising, including cotton and silk yarns that must be bought from the market or from other groups. Thai customers are less interested in traditional weaving than before, and generally have less money to spend on it. So, while international markets become more important, village women are not any better suited to reach them, due to enduring limitations of cultural, technical and language skills.

How does this affect what TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles is doing? It means that we are more determined than before to support the women who continue to do this work. We are buying more of the traditional designs this year (such as the khit weaving, shown on the left and below, which are designs created on the loom by highly skilled and mature weavers who may not be able pass on those skills.) At the same time, we look for weaving that fits into our own cultural context (e.g., that we know our Canadian and U.S. customers will find useful as well as attractive.)

While we continue to build relationships with the groups we already know and buy from, we're also finding new groups and new designers so we can bring fresh work home with us. We plan to make these available through the special textile fairs that we organize, through the events that we're invited to speak at (check our website under "Services" for more information) and through our online shop.


We hope you will help us support Thai and Laotian weavers by buying their wonderful handwoven pieces when we bring them back with us!



Nok Noi & Pii Plaa



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* Note: We try to buy organically produced textiles as often as we can find them, so we support the weavers' attempts to keep their costs down and to lower their exposure -- and that of their environments -- to harmful chemicals.