I am delighted to announce Textile Trails’ 2019 Tour of Bhutan!
This magical journey will wind through fertile valleys and villages, traversing the country to reach the little-visited textile heartland of ‘kushutara’ in Eastern Bhutan. This trip is designed to deepen your experience of this fascinating country with a focus on Bhutanese textiles and opportunities to visit major sights alongside an immersive 2-night stay in a rural village.
This tour has been crafted especially for people who love textiles, craft and local culture and who seek the immersive experience of travelling with Wendy, who has lived and breathed Bhutan and is passionate about the Bhutanese people, their culture, and particularly their weaving.
I will personally escort the tour to share the expertise and insights I gained into Bhutanese culture and textiles while living in Bhutan. This is a rare opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of weaving while travelling with someone who has made a true cross-cultural journey.
We understand that our group will have varying interests and so we provide a range of activities, ranging from hands-on opportunities at the loom through to non-textile pursuits for accompanying partners. We take in the major sights across the country while also taking the time to stay long enough in one place to interact with locals and experience village life. Our small group size combined with driver, local leader and escort enables us to split the group for alternate activities as required and cater for all depths of interest.
The tour runs for 21 days/20 nights, September 29-October 19, 2019 and is priced at USD$4507 per person (twin share/double, land package only).
We had a wonderful time on previous tours (see photos from 2016, 2017 & 2018) and would love you to join us this year!
Yes, please send me the brochure!
Yes, please send me the brochure!
I have some classes & presentations on Bhutanese textiles scheduled for 2019 in Sydney and on the west coast of the US & Canada.
To create a new pattern heddle storage system, the weaver begins with her loom warped with the warp threads passing through a pair of fixed heddles for the ground weave, and then behind that, each warp end passing through it’s own long vertical string heddle. 
To avoid having to pick up the required warp threads to create each row of a supplementary weft pattern, Lao-Tai weavers have devised several methods of storing these patterns on their loom. 
I had plenty of opportunities to see all stages of warp preparation while I was at Ock Pop Tok for 2 months and during a couple of visits to Vientiane, 
