While wandering around in Luang Prabang, admiring the Frech colonial architecture, we wandered into Ock Pop Tok–one of the many shops in town which offers local tapestries and weaving.  They have some of the most beautiful pashmina scarves I’ve ever seen and they are completely made of silk with distinct patterns. I immediately signed up for a 1-day weaving class.

The day began with a lesson on how silk thread is made with silk worms. A single silk-worm cocoon produces 300 meters of silk thread, which is then boiled along with other cocoons and spun into thread.  This is amazing considering the cocoons are only about 1/2″ diameter and 1.5″ long. Next, we learned about Lao techniques for weaving–including kit (two-color, mostly basic), chok (multi-color, advanced), and ikat (pre-dyed yarn that weaves into a pattern). We also learned about the natural dyes that they use to dye their yarn including turmeric root, bark from trees, and indigo plants.

Next, we got to dive in and actually dye our own yarn using the same ingredients. I chose to dye my 3 skeins blue using indigo, red (from a local root and alum) and yellow and orange batik using turmeric and limestone to perform the “magic” change to orange. After turning our hands blue and hanging our silk to dry, we headed over to the weaving hut to begin winding our spools for the afternoon weaving lesson.

I have to admit I was a bit scared of climbing into the large wooden and silk contraption to begin what looked to be the most difficult and coordinated action of my life. However, I stumbled onto the bench, and quickly picked up the pattern of sending the saddle across the web to weave the pattern. After 2 hours of weaving I finished a placemat-sized piece of shiny brown silk with a green Lao pattern in the middle. It was quite exciting to see the finished piece and think that I had completed it without too much help! The whole experience left me excited to try weaving again, to find the possibility of finding such materials in the U.S., and to support the hard work of local Lao people in the form of buying their wares at the night market!