Thursday, August 21, 2008

Paraguayan Ñandutí

This is a very interesting textile from Paraguay, near the Iguazú Falls in the north of Argentina. My family traveled there after I had left to finish high school in Michigan. (One of the [few] disadvantages to being the first kid in the family.)

nanduti

This piece is a kind of Tenerife (named for the city in the Canary Islands where it is popular) lace with a large center medallion, surrounded by 8 smaller medallions in 4 different patterns. Then there are additional filling motifs surrounding those. My mom mounted it on a metal ring with the colored background... I think it shows up beautifully. This piece, unfortunately, is not mine, and will not be mine. My sister has asked for it. Here is a detail picture of the center and a couple of the surrounding motifs:

detail

The picture isn't perfectly clear, but you can get an idea of the delicacy and the beauty of this work.

We adopted a golden retriever puppy yesterday. His name is Jake. Yes, you are correct, we are nuts! I will post pictures in the future. I have been spending my vacation stitching and listening to audio books, and I am enjoying it thoroughly. I just finished the C.S. Lewis trilogy "Out of the Silent Planet," "Perelandra," and "That Hideous Strength." I love those books!

2 comments:

Lelia said...

Enjoy your new puppy. And your (sister's) lace is fabulous! Thx for sharing

domino said...

Hello - I live just a few miles away from Itagua, the Paraguayan capital of the nanduti craft. It is indeed a marvelous craft and comes in so many colors and designs it's mind boggling. I'm from France originally and used to the Brittany lace work, but this is very different, worked on a frame. It's like weaving threads. A real spider's work, in fact, Nanduti is guarani for "Spiderweb." - Dominomarie