Day 2: Vientiane, Laos

Landing in Vientiane

Our first day in Vientiane I arranged for Natalie and myself to go to a school for women to learn traditional silk dyeing and weaving. The center is an NGO created to help women who are impoverished receive training in tailer, weaving an dyeing so that they can make money to support themselves and their families. Many of the women who attend the center are single mothers who husbands have died or left them. As an additional source of income for the center and for the women to practice their english, they arrange for tours and classes for foreigners.

Step 1: Fold silk into fourths, then starting at one end fold into triangles

Step 2: place two sticks of bamboo on the top and bottom of your triangle stack,
 tie the ends of the bamboo together with string

Step 3: To add further design at the bottom of the scarf tie two circles of
bamboo to the scarf, make sure to line them up

Make sure it is tight

This is what it should look like when you have completed this stage.

Step 4: Soak your silk in water

Step 5: These are the natural ingredients used to make the dyes.
Put the ingredients in a cheese cloth, add it to water and bring to a boil.
We used bark from a jack fruit tree to make ours. 

Step 6: Add soaked silk to the pot and stir constantly while at a boil

Step 7: Rinse the silk with cool water to get rid of the excess dye

Step 8: The finished product! Remove bamboo and hang to dry.

We also tried our hand at weaving. The women there were amazing and made it look so easy, what we accomplished in an hour, they could have done in 5 minutes.

Spinning silk

Weavers

Arranging the lines for weaving

Kids watching their Moms' work