The Indians would not touch statues of the saints and church figures such as these – so many of them were made hollow, and served safe hiding places for valuables during the raids of the slave traders who came down from Brazil and took many Indians away to work on plantations. Just visible is the removable back panel. On many of the statues they were painted and the crack/join/seal can be hard to see.

Anyway this gives you proof, if you need it, that this beautiful fine soft orange silk robe edged with gold lace, over a black silk garment embroidered in gold, is all actually carved from wood and then very senstively painted.

Dear Reader – last week when I posted the pic of the very fine Nanduti lace, that was the one thing in particular that I was looking forward to seeing in Paraguay, and learning more about the Jesuit ruins in that area. ( we visited San Ignacio Mini in Missiones province, Argentina, on our way back form Iguazu about 15 years ago) Including the lace and seeing it made, (and of which I found some lovely stuff) are subject of future posts, butI had no idea that we would see carved representations of textiles. Is fabricarving a word? It should be, as IMHO it is not just to call what we saw “carving”. And this was mostly on a day tour down to Encarnation SE of Ascuncion, where we were based, with the specific objective of visiting the Jesuit ruins there, and learning about the missions/reductions in the region, the history and the impact on the indigenous peoples. On the way we called in at a museum in which had been assembled many of the pieces originally in the mission and which, when the Jesuits were expelled were removed by local people and kept safe within local families for many generations until relatively recently.

With the general object of gathering souls the Jesuits taught and organised the native people, at the same time offering them protection fom the marmalukas/slave traders/raiders coming south from Brazil. They taught these sensitive people singing, of european religious music naturally – (for choir in the church) how to play violins and recorders (music for the church) how to raise a variety of crops (to feed those in the misssion including widows and orphans unable to fend for themselves) and husbanding of animals (clothing and feeding plus transportation – carts with oxen) They learned metal crafts including silver smithing (objects for the church) and metal smithing (tools and implements for the various jobs of work – and, ultimately, weapons of defense) The tools included those required for wood carving in which the local indian tribes were capable producers of objects needed for their lives in the forests, but rapidly learned finer skills under the Jesuits, and the museum we visited contained mostly saints and religious figures including very early examples from the early C15, to later C17 examples which showed a huge progressive range of skill. After carving, in most examples we saw in churches or museums, the wood was then painted using vegetable dyes, and a lot of what we saw was apparently original. The painting itself was skillful, producing finishes that looked like the satins, fine cottons, laces or heavy brocades they were emulating. So I have included some of this stuff since although it is wood, it is textile inspired, and really, really looked like actual textile to me. For comparison with something modern, visit this site: www.gofraser.com where can be seen the work of a north american artist who carves modern textiles and particurly enjoys carving traditional pattern quilts.

One simply lovely example of the soft sensuous fabric like qualities of this C16 wood carving – remembering this craft/art had been taught by the Jesuits from only since early in the 1500’s, to the indigenous peoples of the area now covered by S. Paraguay, NE Argentina and S. Brazil. The Indians were already carvers, of canoes, wooden bowls and implements, and rapidly developed finer skills under the Jesuit education and control with the objective of creating fine pieces of statuary, through which was taught the catechism and stories of the bible to these non-litereate peoples. For the main agenda of course, was to garner up souls for the Catholic church. The Indian tribes of these areas had been thought by europeans as little more than animals certainly not Men, but they nevertheless turned out to be extremely quick to learn and develop high skill levels.

This beautiful hedge of berry bushes on a corner in a nearby suburb really caught my eye on saturday as were were out and about. Autumn is in the air, and because the arbol borracha is out in flower, we are having quite a bit of rain, and the air is cooler more often now. 

Although I found this beautiful fine piece of spiderweb lace in the antique markets on saturday, (only 350 pesos which is currently about $13 or $14 US….) it has been a long wait this week for blbogger to sort out the problems preventing many users publishing text or pics. What a treasure this is – the finest example I have ever seen, so far, of the nanditu lace from Paraguay – otherwise known as spiderweb lace.
This hankerchief is approx 12 inches across, and the irregular section 4 to 6 inches across in places, the fine silk fabric very thin and worn away in a spot near the upper edge.

However, great excitement, tomorrow I am actually going to Paraguay for a few days with visiting friend Kitty, on a Girls Own Adventure trip, and among other things plan to go somewhere to see this being made, if we possibly can – we have a contact.

POSTSCRIPT 27/3 someone asked if I was planning to use this or possibly frame it – I may use it sometime, but I am more likely to place it in my box of various lovely things, and just take it out and either show friends or myself, again. I do have a very nice piece of venetian lace in a frame, given me by a sister, and I might mount it sympathetically to go alongside … nothing definite planned, but I know one way or another I will always appreciate it’s quality and beauty. the finest new piece I could find ( and bought) was expensive but not this fine.

…and is moving into some new work. One technical thing that had bugged me was that I found with one of the leathers I plan to be using a fair bit, the machine stitching was (a) obtrusive IMHO but also (b) did not glide evenly under the machine foot anyway, and I was getting some skipped stitches – on both my bernina 1230 in Aus and my 1008 here. I had some helpful advice re a roller foot from a fellow quilter in WA, and I will look for one some time when I am a bit closer to the nearest Bernina dealer ( at this it is point Venezuela – ) The only satisfactory solution has been to admit the leather bits need to be applied by hand which can be done by the stitch coming up from behind, taking in some but not all thickness of the leather, and going back into the fabric again. I now understand that positioned pieces can be held down temporarily for compositional process using pins and then safelty pins from behind, too, while all the pieces are all being applied. There might be instruction books around for this kind of thing but I don’t have them! Just as I couldn’t find any instruction on how to make a gold nugget for a communal quilt project, using very shiny gold lame, brown acrylic paint painted on in the pattterns of the indentations to the nugget which were quilted into as well, and then the whole shape was formed into a low relief ‘bagged quilt’, really, althoughI had never heard of that term. The edges were sitched onto the backing and it was/is somewhere still probably, a successful creation. Anyone with “Down Under Quilts” #1 premier issue, March 1988 , will find an article with a good size illustration in the centrefold pages – interesting for someone who at the time had no notion of ever taking up quiltmaking. I have only just discovered Treasure Gold and Treasure Silver metallic waxes, and have worked out under what circs they need fixing, or leaving to mature in the air.