The woolen rugs of Teotitlan del Valle are recognized for their hand-made weaving on a pedal loom. 100% handwoven wool.
The threads used in the fabrics are also made manually on a spinning wheel with natural wool fibers, the wool goes through a pre-wash to remove all the fats with a natural detergent (amole-a root that when grated produces a cleansing foam for wool).
Subsequently, it goes through a process of carding the wool to remove impurities, (garbage from the field that sticks to the sheep when they graze) in this process the wool is combed until it is soft and ready to transform it into threads.
The raw yarns in their natural color are white, black, light gray and dark gray. The dyeing of the colors to obtain different shades is done with natural pigments, we use cochineal grana for the red, orange or cherry color. This pigment changes the hue depending on the fixative that is applied.
For blues we use indigo, for intense black huizache, walnut for brown tones, the mosses we collect from the mountains and cempasúchil provide us with yellow tones.
Once the fibers are dyed, they are washed again to ensure that the color has been fixed correctly.
Each color takes about a week to be ready. When the colors are ready we create a design and start to stretch the warp on the loom.
If the design is geometric, it is necessary to draw it on checkered paper in order to have a scale and if the design is a literal drawing, it is necessary to make the drawing on paper in the desired real size.
It is possible to reproduce paintings (painters' paintings) on the fabric, these are the most laborious jobs.
Regarding the finish, it depends on the client, there are some who like it with fringes and others without fringes.