HAND MADE MAYAN CRAFTS

A couple of other bits I bought whilst on our holiday in Mexico! It took me forever to chose which ones to buy, I think I went back at least 4 times changing my mind! There were mostly fruits or birds and now I do wish I'd have bought a couple of bird ones too, ah well! I bought them from the shop I mentioned here. I wonder how they have done the circles of stitching, wonderful! All of the crafts in the shop were hand made in the local Mayan villages.

MORE BEAUTIFUL MAYAN CRAFTS FROM MEXICO

A follow on from my previous post! A local shop was also part of the day trip we went on whilst in Mexico which sold all of the crafts that the Mayans made in the villages. It was really clean and really nice to see all of the other things that were being made. Each person or household could have their own section in the shop and there were sometimes photographs of the people who had made that particular piece or pieces, so you sometimes recognized some of the people who you'd seen previously in the village. Dad got a bit bored but for Mum, Sarah and me well, we just couldn't decide which bits we wanted to buy as there were so many lovely pieces! Here are a few of the delights we feasted our eyes on! Oh, also outside there were what looked like two weaving machines. One was hidden away and all wrapped up but had a piece being worked on whilst the other was just out in the open. It was a shame no one was around to show us how they worked, the colours did look just lovely in the Mexican sunshine.

TRADITIONAL MAYAN CRAFTS IN MEXICO

Earlier this year me and my family took a holiday in Mexico in the Yucatan Peninsula. On one of our day trips we visited a Mayan Village where we were privileged to visit two houses which belonged to two Mayan sisters. Their husbands were out working all day whilst they stayed at home, looked after the children and created hand made crafts to sell locally to tourists. The sisters we visited specialized in hammocks and the traditional embroidered dresses, they stitched the beautiful and intricate patterns using the sewing machine and hand weaved the hammocks. We didn't realize this, but if you are visiting a Mayan village you can take along gifts with you for the Mayans. A lot of people seemed to have taken shampoo bottles and soaps from their hotels, fruits and clothes. I really wish we'd have known this before hand. If you're heading over to Mexico you can find out more about the day trip here, it included visiting Coba, a large ruined city of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization, a traditional Mexican lunch (very yum!), the visit to the Mayan village and then a quick dip in a cenote on the way back. Very refreshing!