Happily for those who spend a full week there, Luang Prabang has more to offer than just wats, wats, wats. In February, I spent two full days taking a weaving course through OckPopTok, which operates two shops in the town and a weaving center just outside of it. I had never done any weaving before (or shown real aptitude for crafts of any sort), but my mother has instilled in me an abiding interest in textiles. A class seemed like it would be a good way to learn something more about how they are produced and how they fit into Lao culture. At the end of the day, I would take home a silk scarf that I wove myself.
Boiling sappan wood to make a natural red dye.
On the first day, my classmate Lynne and I began by learning something about natural dyes. Traditionally, Lao weavers used everything from turmeric to rusty nails to produce beautiful colors of silk. We got some hands-on practice: Lynne mashed annato seeds to make an orange dye while I chopped up sappan wood to produce both red and purple. Fun facts: Boiled by itself, the wood produces a pink dye; if you throw in a handful of rusty nails, it becomes red. And if you let the red dye ferment for six months, it becomes purple.
My teacher demonstrates how to spin the silk thread for my scarf.
In the afternoon, we met our teachers and began work on our scarves. The weavers who produce OckPopTok’s beautiful wall hangings also instruct the classes, so you are really learning from the best. The women don’t speak English, so much of the instruction takes place through body language. Every time I forgot to change the foot pedals, my teacher would cough. If I was about to lose the pattern, she would reach over and yank the threads back into the proper position. And when more complicated problems arose, the male interpreters did a good job explaining what I was doing wrong. (But they don’t touch the looms themselves. In Lao culture, weaving is women’s work — if a man weaves, he is supposedly never going to get married.)
My scarf nears completion.
The weaving itself is not easy. Just as I was starting to get the hang of plain weaving, it was time to make the first stretch of pattern. The pattern is set by the heddle, a complicated pattern of vertical strings and loops that controls the movement of the warp threads. Assembling the heddle is what qualifies someone as a master weaver, so this was not something that I did myself. But even though it was set up for me, there was still plenty of work to do. The weaver — or in this case, the weaver and her teacher — manually moves the loops up and down as she progresses through the pattern. Any small mistake would be obvious in the final product. But my teacher kept an eagle eye on my progress and quickly corrected the mistakes I inevitably made.
All told, it took about eight hours over two days to finish my scarf. By the time it was ready to come off the loom, my back was stiff, and I was very glad that I didn’t have to do that every day. But the finished product was lovely, and all the work felt well worthwhile.
It is worth pointing out that OckPopTok’s classes are not cheap. My two-day course cost $100, including all of the materials and lunch on both days. And some visitors might not find two days of weaving to be exactly vacation-like — it’s hard work! But if you do have a serious interest in textiles, the quality of instruction and the high level of individual attention make OckPopTok’s classes worth every penny.
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