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Sanyork Fair Trade Workshop in Peru Employs Artisans to Produce Blankets, Throws, Beanies, Scarves, Socks, Sweaters and Fabric

As the current crisis has unraveled, so have the working patterns that make up our in-house production. On Friday January 29th another 100% lockdown was declared in Peru and we were forced to shutdown our workshop and send all the work to our artisans homes.

Our office staff will stay home through February 19th. As a consequence our first week of February cargo is grounded through after February 25th 2021

One more struggle in the darkness of this difficult situation that we know our resilient artisan families will overcome.

Weaving blankets and fabric

Old industrial looms live their second life weaving alpaca and wool blankets. At a ton and a half each thunder loom runs their wheels, pulleys, greasy gears of mid twentieth century mechanical innovation that made complex patterns possible. We run our dusty and loud looms inside our artisan workshop, amidst one hundred factories in the Ascarrunz Industrial Complex outside Lima. Alpaca, acrylic and wool spools of yarn stashed at every corner of the loom room as the rolls of blanket emerge from one end of each machine while the Jacquard cards click every second as the shuttles shoot loudly back and forth.

Blankets are made of natural colored wool with all the fiber's inherent qualities of warmth and durability
Every blanket is produced in a limited edition as our production capacity is limited to a handful of looms. Our only technician, Alberto Rojas, a dinosaur himself; can direct this loud orchestra as he knows every piece that this traditional antique mill technology needs to run.

Care instructions for alpaca and wool throws: cold water wash, gentle cycle, mild soap, dry flat.
Tucked in one corner of our weaving area a different small loom runs steadily intertwining bright colorful cotton threads for our manta fabrics. The old Dornier HTV12/J Mechanical Weaving Machine with its Staubli Jacquards rapidly shuttles back and forth yards and yards of manta striped fabric.

Knitting Scarves, Ponchos and Socks

In a different area of our workshop behind closed doors and windows silently a shiny loom oscillates knitting superfine alpaca fiber. This is where our ponchos, hats, scarves and hats are being made. Hugo and Melquiades both expert knitters themselves, run the computers and attentively watch the screen and behind the glass that the needles don't break and that not a knot is missed.

These two Stoll industrial flat knit machines can tirelessly work long hours. In the same room against a wall, one more example of old technology from the 1970's. The circular Tecno sock industrial machine we run every few weeks to knit our socks can produce three hundred socks a day but not the fancy design ones, just beautifully knit simple alpaca socks.

Hugo has mastered running the old computer run museum piece and it works! The rest of the knitting takes place in the knitters homes. Every week on Saturday, they pick up yarn by the weight and they return the finished product and get paid.

The work is done in a couple of dozen Singer standard gauge knitting machines we bought years ago on eBay. They live in each artisan home where the work gets done.
10th Feb 2021 Michel Kessler

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