Threads of Peru Blog

As you might have noticed, Threads of Peru has a thriving volunteer program this summer! With five fresh faces in the office, we’ve been able to work on a multitude of exciting and interesting projects, from social media and marketing to cultural research and impact assessment. 

Adrian, Alexa and Stephanie during an interview with the weavers  in which Quechua was translated to Spanish and vice versa.

On the social media front, Stephanie Pardi has been hard at work creating content for the Threads blog, as well as updating our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. With her creative and insightful writing, we hope to give you all a better taste of Peru and what Threads is all about. 

Alexa stirring a pot of cochineal for various shades of red, purple, pink and gray.

Working on cultural research concerning Andean dye plants, Alexa Jones has organized two natural dye workshops in order to produce all of the shades in our color palette. She’ll be creating sets of labeled sample books, while also helping out with some graphic design work! 

Eliane and Dana going over the order of pom poms.

Eliane Heutschi, designer extraordinaire, is sewing up a storm! Eli has been creating samples for a capsule collection, which includes five gorgeous, Peruvian-inspired pieces. We can’t wait to show you the final products! 

The Threads of Peru team in Cusco during a dye workshop with the weavers of Huaran.

In order to expand Threads of Peru’s market in Europe, Giulia Grassi has been scouting new wholesale opportunities and redefining the brand image. In addition to reaching out to new retailers, Giulia is writing a marketing strategy and customer surveys to help Threads grow. Harrison Ackerman is in the early stages of an impact assessment project, seeking to observe Threads of Peru’s impact in the communities by interviewing the weavers, analyzing what kind of progress we’re making, and suggesting ways we can improve.

It’s quite a productive summer here in the Threads of Peru office! Stay tuned to hear more about all the progress our bright volunteers are making on their respective projects. We also have several new and exciting volunteer opportunities! Threads is currently looking for graphic design, social media, and journalism volunteers.

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Thoughts at the beginning of 2012 “How did I end up writing the New Year message?” I wonder, as I ponder whether a New Year’s message is about the past or the future… and whether its even a New Years message, when you are writing it more than 30 days into the New Year.

Regardless, I forge on deciding a New Years Message can be about both the past and the future.

2011 was a big year for us, as we employed a fantastic Cusco based Project Manager, Amanda Zenick, and were blessed with the talents of two great volunteers, Fani Karaivanova, Textile Project Assistant & Community Liaison and Frankie Ginnett Assistant Volunteer Coordinator & Project Assistant who have all contributed to advancing the project considerably.

Here you can see Amanda Zenick and Fani Karaivanova working hard to measure everything at the entrega

The idea of having more people “hands on deck” is to relieve the pressure and hours worked on the founders, who are still completely voluntary. What actually happened is that the Founders moved onto new projects, including spreading the marketing of the project further!

This year our Ebay store was absolutely beautiful, thanks to the design talents of Angie Hodder and Adam Foster Collins, and of a number of photographers in Cusco, including volunteer Lynn Dao. In 2012 we will be expanding into an Ethical Community store and hope in the not too distant future to have our own store on our website!

We also should make special note of our patient Master weaver, Daniel Sonqo who put in a sensational year’s work, enduring our requests for different styles and dimensions, and then transforming these requirements into beautiful weavings with the women of our different weaving groups.

Here you can see Daniel giving a talk to the women in Chaullacocha at the pedido, he is asking them what they would like to weave. Due to the heavy rain this talk takes place inside the greenhouse!

As I look back over the year, there are many small and large successes, but in short – we have achieved a lot and have a lot of people to thank, not the least everyone who “put their money where their mouth is” and supported us by buying a fair trade weaving.

Each year the Project takes a weather directed hiatus for several months (January and February) as it’s difficult, if not impossible, to access the communities where we work. So currently we are busy planning, budgeting and dreaming about what we can create for the project in 2012. In general terms – we would like our women to continue improving their weavings, and for us to sell more of their weavings, which will in turn bring a better quality of life to their remote communities.

An example of one of the beautiful ponchos made this year by the women we work with.

Happy New Year everyone!

Ariana Svenson, Co- Founder

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