Chachahuantla is a growing Nahua town right on the border with the State of Hidalgo. There blouses are sold to a number of other villages in the vicinity. Bob Freund 7/27/2005 for more information contact: info@mexicantextiles.com

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Chachahuantla has recently been liberated from obscurity imposed during the last 70 years and now has a fairly decent dirt road and access the highway. The town is at the base of some rather beautiful cliffs, on the border with the state of Hidalgo’s Acaxochitlan district. Many of the villages in the surrounding area buy their blouses and belts from Chachahuantla and there are a number of embroidery collectives in town. The first picture is a friend being cinched up as she go dressed up in the traditional black wrap skirt and hand woven belt in 1994. The there are at least three different hand embroidered styles of blouses and the ruffle and yoke are machine embroidered. Please don’t get the idea that it is easier to do, the fill is almost 100% and the foot treadle sewing machines are operated at a very slow pace in order to create to designs.

Sra. Gallardo Munoz id pictured here, she is one of the leaders of the textile collective in town, she is located it the small restaurant in the kiosk front of the municipal palace. The traditional quechquemitl is made from poplin with machine embroidery on it. As I entered the town I noticed a few women wearing the "new" style of quechquemitl which is knit, it reminds me of the older gauze style that is also seen in a number of village. It goes to show that these textiles are not stagnant but a living ever changing style among their indigenous peoples. What is constant in my view is the skill to create these extraordinary garments.