Arhuacu and Wayuu Mochilas and a bit on how to crochet your own.

I am always lucky when a vacation includes some fiber adventures. My first day visiting with my good friend Celia in Bogata, Colombia included a workshop for two on how to crochet a mochila, or traditional shoulder bag, which have a woven strap.  The word translates as "backpack" but they only have one strap. Men and women both use mochilas.

There are basically two types...one done by the Arhuaco, and one by the Wayuu.   From what I have researched, I learned that Catholic nuns taught the indigenous peoples how to crochet, and it remains a very popular hand craft, much more than knitting from what I observed.

Below is a map of northern Colombia showing where the two groups originate from

The Arhuaca people live near the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. They crochet beautiful bags from fique, which is a plant fiber derived from the fique plant that lives in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru; in the US we call it sisal.  Here are some bags that I saw in a market; the bottom two rows are natural colored Arhuaca mochilas. Here is some more info from wikipedia. These mochilas may also be cotton or wool.

The other sort of mochila is done by the Wayuu, who originate in the Guajira Peninsula in the North of Colombia and northwest Venezuela.

These some photos are Wayuu mochilas from the Museo de Trajes Regionale in Bogata

These mochilas are obviously more colorful and often seen with contemporary themes.  Patterning can also resemble those of traditional molas, (more on molas in a future post).

So how are these made? Well, first one finds a teacher with exacting standards. For us, this is Celia's friend Elisa.

 If you want some fun, try learning to do this with someone whose Engish is nonexistant (as is my Spanish for something this complicated).  Luckily, we were in a cafe where a friendly English translator could be found... that would be Celia's daughter Whitney, who runs the bakery/cafe.

We began with a trip to the ribbon store, which carries cotton crochet yarn, similar to Aunt Lydia's only with much more twist. A no 4 crochet hook is also required, I think this is the US sizing.

Then, after climbing the hill back to El Nido (and working to keep up with Celia and Elisa), Elisa instructed us to crochet a 6 stitch chain, and connect it, then single crochet 10 stitches into the loop. Did I mention that this is all single crochet? Continue crocheting in a spiral, Elisa had us do one SC into one stitch then 2 into the next.

I have actually worked on crocheting something round in the last couple months. (This). The increase ratio is different from Elisa's. With my mochila,  however, I experienced the potato chip phenomenon (too many stitches so it's not flat) as there were too many increases, so of course Elisa had me pull some out and reduce my increase ratio.

I did not get too far, but I think that the next step is to stop increasing. Then the hard part starts...crocheting in the pattern. I'll see where this goes! It's a bit potato-chippy so far