From our friends at the YARN TREE...

Fundraising Plea

Last year many of you helped to fund my trip to Rwanda where I had the privilege of working with 10 genocide widows teaching them natural dyeing and weaving.

On September 3rd, 2010 I will be making another trip, this time to Oaxaca, Mexico.
I will be working with a group of native weavers, most work on back strap looms, teaching them a technique called Ikat. This is a method of tying off the warp yarns prior to dyeing to create a pattern. I will also be teaching them how to make a chemical indigo vat using natural Oaxacan Indigo. There are areas where the climate is not appropriate for a natural ferment indigo vat. Learning this skill will enable them to dye with indigo whenever they wish.
I have been invited by the Museo Tetxil de Oaxaca to give the Ikat/Indigo workshop to 10 weavers.
The museum is relatively new, with a very small budget. This is where I need your help! They cannot pay my airfare, nor can they pay for me to transport the tools and materials I will need to bring with me.
The museum will be able to provide me with room & board and ground transportation.
I will spend three days working with the weavers at the museum. The following week I will have the opportunity to visit each weaver in his or her village. I will get to see the work in progress, photograph and interview the weavers.
At the end of the week the weavers will return to the museum where we will conduct a show & tell/Q& A.
Ikat has a history in Mexico, although it seems to now be a lost technique. This will be a new skill for the weavers and the hope being that they will be able to create new and beautiful textiles that can compete in today’s marketplace thus bringing in more income. In turn these weavers will then be able to pass their new skills on to their fellow weavers.



Tax deductible donations can be made directly to my fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, for my project Stories of Hope at this linkhttps://www.fracturedatlas.org/donate/2928
Stories of Hope is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Stories of Hope may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Donations can also be made directly to me (but they will not be tax deductible!).

You can mail a check to payable to Linda LaBelle to:
Linda LaBelle
C/O The Yarn Tree
P.O. Box 110598
Brooklyn, NY 11211



Or you can donate using https://www.paypal.com to my account linda@theyarntree.com
Please be sure to add a message that this is a donation for the Oaxaca trip.

As an incentive I am offering the following:
For a $500.00 donation you will receive a gift of a small (approx. 24”X36”) rug woven by Ernesto, the weaver /dyer in Oaxaca I help to support.



For a $250.00 donation you will receive a signed copy of my book Stories of Hope
You can view the book here:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1212970

For a $100.00 donation you will receive an 8X10 signed photo from the trip

All donations under $100.00 will receive a signed 4X6 photo from the trip.

I hope you can help,



Linda