Spinning From Cradle to Grave: Andean Spinning

In the Andes, children are given spindles when they’re only three years old. By the time girls are five or six, they are spinning good, useable yarn. They spin as they tend the sheep, as they walk to school, as they grow up and mind their own babies. They spin every day of their lives, even when they are too old to do much else. And so it has been for millenia. And over the centuries, their techniques have become refined for greatest efficiency and best yarn, whether it’s for weaving blankets or knitting hats.

In Andean Spinning, Nilda Callañaupa shares what she has learned from her Quechua elders over the course of fifty years of deep involvement in the craft. Watch this and challenge yourself.