Handcrafted Techniques Used in Peru

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Artisans in Peru are known for their skilled craftsmanship and ability to transform natural materials into a piece of art all by hand. The women that work with emiLime are skilled in many techniques, creating an array of products with embroidery, crochet, weaving, hand carving, and as previously mentioned in an earlier blog, knitting.

The beauty of handmade pieces is the history and journey that goes into to making every piece. Are you wondering what technique was used on your scarf? All these techniques are rooted deep within the history of the Peruvian culture as well as cultures throughout the world. Let’s start with embroidery.


Our  Bees hat and arm warmers use a blend of knitting and embroidery techniques. 

Embroidery is the art of decorating materials, mostly fabrics, with a needle and thread, or sometimes yarn. Although machine embroidery arose with the Industrial Revolution, the art of hand embroidery, and the culture that it reflects, has continued through the generations of Peruvian women that passed down the skill from mother to daughter. Sometimes embroidery is used to tell stories, while at times it is simply used to embellish its foundation.

Weaving is a textile craft in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, one running lengthways (the “warp”) and the other running across from side to side (the “weft” or “filling”), are interlaced to form a fabric or a cloth. Additionally, weaving is usually done on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads in place while filling threads are woven through them. There are two types of looms that have been used in emiLime products. One is a large stand alone loom. These are used to make bigger pieces of fabric. Both men and women use this type of loom and in artisanal villages, many families still have looms in their houses. The other type of weaving is done on a back strap loom. This is commonly found throughout South and Central America. It is portable and much smaller than the stand alone loom and is fixed to an object like a tree.

Stand alone looms found in some of our artisan's homes (top) and women using a back strap loom (below)

Material created using large loom. 

Final product from woven fabric. Our True Love or Bust purse. 

Crochet, on the other hand, is the process of creating fabric out of yarn, thread, or other material goods by using a single crochet hook.


Our curl scarf in berry is crocheted.

Hand carving is another unique technique that we use in some of our products. Among many other materials, we work with skilled hand carvers that use bullhorn to create giant buttons or other adornments used for products such as emiLime’s Stag Headband and Tube Mobius. Bullhorn is made out of keratin, a term that refers to a family of fibrous structural proteins, and is in fact the key structural material making up the outer layer of the human skin. You can imagine that it doesn’t take much strength to hand carve beautiful pieces like the ones emiLime’s women have made! It does, however, take creativity and skill.

Hand carved bull horn or cacho de toro buttons. 

Stag headband with hand carved bull horn. 

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