Any form of repair technique in Peruvian textiles is rare. Many of the
materials show wear and occasionally coarse stitches are put through
the cloth to draw the edges of a tear together; otherwise there is
little to suggest concern with prolonging the life of a garment.
In a series of Chincha domestic cloths there are eleven patched
specimens but not one trace of reweaving as in darning techniques.
Apparently the unusual number of mended cloths interested the
collectors in the field for, although a half dozen fragments appear to
have been reduced to their present size, the patched portions have
been carefully preserved. Fragmentary lengths of these textiles ranged
from 14 to 28 inches; widths ranged from 13 to 30 inches.
Certain generalizations are pertinent to all the mended fragments.
There is no evidence of the use of a cutting tool; the edges of the
patching pieces were torn or snagged along a thread. If the selvages
were somewhat worn, the seamstress did not remove them but made a deep
turn to fold the worn part to the underside. Much of the patching
material was perceptibly worn to begin with; three brown specimens
were badly disintegrated. On specimen 16-1259 there are four
overlapping layers of patching material in one spot. Generally, the
worn spot covered by a patch or several patches is an area in which
the weaving was poorly done.
The patched fabrics are in the medium- and coarse-texture groups with
the exception of one fine cloth (16-1224). The repair materials fall
within all three texture groups. A third of the patches (11 out of
31) were of striped materials, most of which are of better quality
than the base fabric. Patches too small to cover the entire worn area
are pieced out by overlapping them with a second piece of material.
More than a third of the patches were taken from the edges of the
breadths, as the stripes indicate.
Techniques used to fasten down the edges are hemming and whipping. The
workmanship is fairly coarse, the lengths of the individual stitches
approximately a quarter-inch long. Standards were much below those
held by the weaver, but this difference is not surprising.
Threads employed for the patching suggest that the seamstress used
odds and ends of weaving yarns. Two or more kinds ordinarily appear on
a single patch, one of them usually a coarse white cotton thread of
fairly loose twist. Some threads are used single in the needle, some
double. Colors are browns, blues, orange, yellow, the last happening
to be short lengths of wool. There is no evidence that the seamstress
attempted to match the yarn to either the ground or the patch
materials. Where we start a new length of thread with a knot made at
the end, these Chincha threads begin with a half-hitch around the
first stitch taken through the cloth (16-1238) or with a stitch
through the cloth and a knot tied with the short and long sections of
the thread (16-1261).
Plate 3,d shows one of the typical patched cloths. Four fabrics are
represented: the base material, medium fine; and the three patching
fabrics, the lower patch very fine and the upper right and left
patches coarse. The most complicated arrangement of patches is found
on a specimen (16-1240) composed of two breadths seamed together. The
overall measurements of the torn rectangular fragment are 17 inches
warpwise by 30 inches weftwise. Within this area are nine different
pieces of cloth, seven of them covering worn spots or poorly woven
areas.