I found weavers in Myanmar!

We toured a little village near Bagan that had a loom set up for the tour guides to demonstrate weaving for their groups. Then when the group moved on a little old lady came in and fixed the amateur's mistakes.

 At the same village this 91 year old woman was spinning cotton bolls into thread. Behind her is another woman winding the thread into skeins.

In Bagan we went to climb a pagoda to watch the sunset. I prefered to stay on the ground and watch this weaver. She's using the backstrap method to hold the loom taut. She was making an unusual double sided fabric.

Our guide referred to her as a "long neck" but that "she's not from around here." Starting as a young woman, a metal ring was placed around her neck to stretch it. She had a dozen or so rings. She had placed a soft cloth between her chin and the last ring to make it more comfortable to bend her head down as she wove.

These looms are set up in a village outside of the beach town of Ngapali, where we spent the second half of our Myanmar trip. The house is built on stilts and underneath the building there were at least a dozen barn looms. The house next door was set up the same way.  

Most of the looms were being used to weave bamboo placemats. The warps were beautiful, multicolored cottons and the women (it's always women doing the weaving here) placed the thin bamboo sticks in as weft. They wove a few inches of thread between each placemat where they could then cut them apart and hem the edges.

There were a few looms set up to weave yards of fabric (in overshot designs). Unfortunately they didn't have this one for sale. It was beautiful - purple warp with green and white weft. Notice the temple (the x-shaped pieces of wood) being used to keep the fabric stretched taut along the reed. I loved watching the fly shuttle whipping back and forth.

This woman was winding bobbins from skeins of cotton thread. What a great use of old bicycle wheels.

While we were wandering around the "studio" one of my friends, who's a big Korean drama fan, noticed that one of the weavers had some pictures of her favorite Korean drama actors pinned to her loom. There was an instant connection and much giggling amongst the other young women there. My friend, by the way, is what we affectionately call an OWL - old white lady - but Korean drama bridges the gap between all societies, apparently.

Lee enjoyed hanging out at the weaving studio too. He was very pleased, I'm sure, to know that we were spreading our wealth among the various crafters in this lovely country. (Good thing there was some extra space in my suitcase.)