Oaxacan Rugs & Tapestries

Most of our colourful Oaxacan rugs were woven by Raul, Beatrice, Gaspar and Viridiana Chavez and members of their extended family. They are all excellent dyers, spinners and weavers. They live and work in Teotitlan del Valle, the most famous weaving village in Oaxaca. The primary language of this village is Zapoteca, but Raul, his son Gasper and daughter, Viridiana have learned to speak English. We’ve become friends with Raul and his family over the years and get to see them once or twice a year when a couple of family members come to Guayabitos to sell their rugs.

Many tourists travel to Oaxacan villages, not only to buy rugs and tapestries, but to meet the weavers and experience first hand the entire process of creating these one of a kind rugs.

Each detailed rug and tapestry is a work of art and function. They are created exclusively by hand and can take up to 300 hours to finish. Natural dyes are very carefully and laboriously prepared and are concocted from a large variety of plant, animal and mineral sources.

We have several rugs hanging on the walls of our casa, but in Canada I have them on the floors. I have three rugs in my kitchen back home that get a lot of abuse, but cleaning them is an easy process. I take them outside, lay them over a log and hose them down. After drying in the sun for a few hours they look as good as new.