Anna Champeney. Hand woven textiles

galician folk weaving
- research and writing

I have researched Galician folk textiles in Spain since 1995 and have written, lectured on and created exhibitions on the subject.
I offer textile talks at my home in Spain upon request (see Courses and Events).

	Galician weavers - always women - wove in dark, cramped workshops on the ground floor of rural farmhouses which were often damp. Many weavers wove in their "spare time" when it was dark, working by the flickering light of tin lamps.
	The typical stripey sacks of the Ribeira Sacra are deceptively contemporary. They are still used in the village where I live and double up as rain capes.
	The highly colourful, decorative bed coverlets or colchas of Galicia are still virtually un-researched. Woven from handspun wool and linen these coverlets were valued for generations as heirloom pieces until they were worn out.
	Galician felpa - ( hand-made pile fabric) a rural art form in Galicia. Widely used to create coverlets with floral or geometric borders and central panels which were often filled with lettering or dates. Some handweavers in Galicia still use the technique today and there are even those who make coverlets to commission still. It continues to be a costly technique because of the time it takes to make. Each bouclé which forms the pile is picked out by hand on the loom.

Selected Articles on Galicia by Anna Champeney

Folk Life, Journal of Ethnological Studies, Volume 34, 1995-6, Ethnography in North-West Spain - Peasant Crafts in Galicia: Present and Future

Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, Issue 186, June 1998, The Last Textiles of Old Europe?
Anglo Spanish Society Quarterly - Letters from Galicia - Issues 192, 193, 194 and 195, Autumn 2001 - Summer 2002

Anglo Spanish Society Quarterly Review, 2.003, Food Festivals in Galicia