Indian Arts

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In this picture is Lula (I thought her name was Una, but my grandson assures me it was Lula as he worked with her husband on a sheetrock crew during the trip). She wanted us to come see the big rug that she was weaving. We came to find out that she makes them and then sends them to a trading post where they sell them for $2000 each. However, she only gets $500 of that after a sale. Something sure isn't right about that! (one of the ladies in our group is buying this one from her, and I assume for much more than the $500 she would get from the trading post). I came to find out something that most of you probably already know about Indian families. That is that it's the women that are the "bread winners" in the families. The men do work when they can. Some of the men we met work at farming, but even a lot of the farming work is done by the women. There was one mom who sat with us at the mission a lot and made jewelry the whole time. She sold several pieces to people in our group as she made it. The family that we went to clean their yard, the grandma did weaving and had lots of weavings on the walls. They were for sale for the asking. An Indian woman came in with her daughters with both jewelry and small weavings for sale on our last day there. She sold lots to our group. I thought her prices on her jewelry was very reasonable and if someone said they didn't have that much, she took what the person had. I would have loved to have bought one of her weavings---for the memory and to help out her family----but she was asking $60 to $75 for a placemat sized weaving. I just can't afford that. Anyway, it really made me think. Here I was on the mission trip and when time allowed I was working on the blue and brown yo-yo table runner. This is a special order that I'm not even sure if the gal will still buy after it's taking me so long to make it. I wanted to, and planned to come home and instead of always being on the computer, take time off the computer and only craft. I have yet to pick up the table runner to work on it! Generally I try to do little crafts as I can here and there when I am motivated all while clicking at the same time. Otherwise the only dedicated sewing/craft time I have is the groups and such that I go to outside of the house. Motivate me my mylot friends to get to where I should be, making and selling my crafts!