Guatemalan Corte buy Fabric in Charcoal Ikat

This fabric is 32 inches wide and 4 yards long.

It is 100% cotton.

This piece was woven to make a skirt for a Mayan woman. It is a fantastic vintage piece.

In Guatemala the women wear rectangular panels of fabric as skirts. The fabric is hand-woven on a foot loom. It can be between 4 and 7 yards long. They then sew the ends together to form a tube shape that the wrap around themselves making a skirt. Sometimes narrow panels are sewn together and the seam is hidden by embroidery work which is called a “randa.” The woman steps into the skirt and wraps it around herself and ties it at the top with a hand woven belt. Some villages have a system of pleating or gathering the fabric and some just wear the skirt straight.
The corte that has a design woven into it is done by a method called “jaspe.” In English we call it buy “ikat.” It is done by weaving with threads that have been tie-dyed to make the pattern. The patterns are incredible. Traditionally, each pueblo had its corte just like it had its guipil (traditional blouse). The corte is normally made of cotton and now days a lot of it has metallic threads running through it. A lot of the corte fabric comes from the towns of Salcaja and Totonicapan. Some towns, of course, have weavers who also make their town's corte.

Be sure to check out more great Guatemalan fabric in my etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/spanglishfabrics

You can find other Guatemalan artisan pieces at www.spanglishfabrics.com

You can also follow Spanglish Fabrics on facebook and Pinterest.