Sarape Coaster

Woven on a pedal loom in Mitla, Oaxaca, each coaster carries the shifting stripes and vivid color of a traditional sarape in miniature. The cloth is cut and finished by hand, leaving a soft fringe around the edges.

Made for everyday use, they bring a small flash of Oaxaca to the table and become more relaxed with washing and time. Because the pattern changes across the woven cloth, no two are exactly alike.

Dimensions
4.5" x 4.5"

Care
Machine wash. Hang dry.

About Oaxaca
I arrived in Oaxaca unexpectedly twenty-six years ago, and it stole my heart. I have lived and worked there ever since, building Oax-i-fornia: a project that brings artisans, designers, and students together to create new work while learning from the knowledge already held within Oaxaca's communities. Set in the mountains of southern Mexico, Oaxaca remained relatively isolated from the country's industrial development well into the twentieth century. The Pan-American Highway reached the city in the 1940s, opening it more fully to tourism and the rest of Mexico. Long before that, its fertility and wealth were recognized by the Spanish Crown, which granted Hernán Cortés the title Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca in 1529. Conquest transformed the region, but it did not erase its extraordinary diversity. Across Oaxaca, Indigenous communities retained languages, forms of local government, communal relationships to the land, and highly specific ways of making the objects required for daily life. This is why craft in Oaxaca is not simply a decorative tradition. In many communities, it remains part of the working infrastructure of the home. Metates still grind corn; molcajetes prepare sauces; comales cook tortillas much as they have for generations. Traditions are not static. Black clay, once used primarily for practical water vessels, became increasingly polished and ornamental during the twentieth century. New forms, markets, and collaborations continue to change what is made. Yet the knowledge behind these objects remains intensely local, rooted in particular soils, plants, tools, foods, and communities. Even today, Oaxaca continues to shape how I understand design: not as something imposed upon an object, but as knowledge accumulated through use.

About Pedal Loom Weaving in Oaxaca
The pedal loom was a colonial introduction, adopted throughout Mexico as an alternative to the backstrap loom, the standard cloth-making technique in the pre-Hispanic world. The looms are wooden, and usually made by the weavers themselves, allowing for wider cloths to be woven than their backstrap counterparts. A very skill-based and demanding craft, it can create amazing patterns in cotton, wool, silk, and an endless number of other fibers. Just magic.

About Handmade Pieces
Crafted by hand using techniques passed down through generations of master artisans. Variations in color, texture, and finish are inherent to the process; each piece is, by nature, one of a kind.