Description
This piece of Guatemalan corte fabric is 34-inches wide & is sold by the yard. This fabric has a beautiful drape. It would make a gorgeous skirt or top. It is also perfect for putting into a quilt. This corte has been upcycled, but is really in excellent shape. The last picture shows a group of young ladies in the Independence Day celebration in La Antigua, Guatemala wearing traditional Mayan clothing. Sometimes when I list a fabric on etsy or show it on facebook, I call it "corte." I thought I'd take the time to explain what corte is & show some pictures of it. 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 & 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 & the seam is hidden by embroidery work which is called a "randa." The woman steps into the skirt & wraps it around herself & ties it at the top with a hand woven belt. Some villages have a system of pleating or gathering the fabric & 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 "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 & now days a lot of it has metallic threads running through it. A lot of the corte fabric comes from the towns of Salcaja & Totonicapan. Some towns, of course, have weavers who also make their town's corte. Check out more great Guatemalan fabrics in my etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/spanglishfabrics you can also find Spanglish Fabrics on facebook. Guatemalan Corte - Green & Gold Double Ikat
