THREE YEARS WITH THE CHANCAY GAUZES.

Today (November the 24th) is a very special day to me.

Exactly three years ago I meet my husband in the center of Lima at Placa de Armas, Peru. I came to Lima three days earlier as I had an appointment with Museo Amano, to study there beautiful collection of Chancay Gauzes.

This post is a tribute to my husband and our marriage.
In January 2010 I wrote another post about my studies of the Chancay Gauzes. Please have a look for further information.

When studying the Gauzes I always started out by taking a photo with a ruler. This help me now when I am back in Denmark and want to study the textile in details and re-analyze it.

This fragment is very characterful and clearly with the zig zag pattern and the wide plain weave in the top part. It measures approx. 67 x 69 cm.

At Museo Amano they had there own library with information about where the fragments of textiles where found in the Chancay Valley. Some of them with specific details of the many villages such as Pisquillo, Piso and Supe.
This textile is one of my favorites with it's floating threads between the zig zag lines.

The Gauzes have all been woven on a backstrap loom, where it was possible to weave a certain size. All of the Gauzes I have seen at Museo Amano where sewn together, mostly by two pieces in the warp direction to make a larger piece.

The textiles have all been finger manipulated when woven.
The material is cotton which is very general when it comes to the Gauzes.

I have only seen one textile made in a combination of cotton and wool. This one was also made in different colors.

I always finished my studies of a textile by taking several pictures through a magnifying glass. This has helped me now when I am back in Denmark, to keep on studying the different structures in the textile.

This piece is very big. It measures approx. 145 x 64 cm. It is found in Pisquillo, Chico area in the Chancay Valley.

As you can see on this picture it consist of three pieces and is sewn together two times in the warp direction.

The edges in the warp direction is beautiful made. Also the top part of the edges in the weft direction is nicely made, but the down part is scalopped as you can see here.The material is cotton.

Eventhough the pattern is squared, I think the horisontal and vertical stribes and lines stands out because of the floating threads in the weft direction.

This textile had a lot of holes which somebody (perhaps people at Amano or others) have tried to correct.

Here you can see the cotton thread is overtwisted as the threads curls when they lies and floats.

Many of the Chancay Gauzes is overtwisted and I think it gives the apperance of the textile a more beautiful and sofisticated look.

Detail throught the magnifying glass.

The textiles at Amano were categorized into different kinds of patterns. This one belongs to the animal part with the silhouette of a cat face.

It measures approx. 77 x 74 cm.

It was the first textile I chose with a clearly and outstanding embroidery.

Raoul D' Harcourt writes about this technique in the book: Textiles in Ancient Peru and their Techniques.

I see this fragment as very special as the textile is a Gauze with embroidery on the top. Many of the other embroidered pieces consist of a net with the embroidery part on the top.

Here you can see the part where the textile is sewn together. In this piece it is done in a very beautiful way where the pattern still fits together afterwards.

The embroidered part of the eyes and the mouth of the cat.

Also this piece is in overtwisted cotton.

Detail of the embroidered part. This has been made by a thick thread which prejudice on every single warp thread, but just about every other weft thread. By this there is made a knot or swirl on the other side of the textile.

Now I am going out and buying a big bouquet of sunflowers to my husband, so he can wake up to a special morning of ouer day, to some sun instead of the snow falling down outside.