page_title: Abby Franquemont
section_title: Textile arts background
hierarchical_section_title: Abby Franquemont / Early life and family / Textile arts background
caption_attribution_description: English: Woman with a drop spindle in Chinchero.- Peru
context_page_description: Abigail M. Franquemont is an American textile crafts writer, lecturer and educator, based in Cusco, Peru. She spent her early childhood among the Quechua people of Chinchero, Peru, where "women spun to eat and pay for the home they lived in." As a revivalist of the ancient art of hand spinning with the spindle, she published her book, Respect the Spindle, in 2009.
context_section_description: Franquemont was born into a textile environment. She remembers "falling asleep under her father's loom." Among friends in Chinchero, Franquemont and her sister spent their early childhoods within the hand spinning and hand weaving culture of the local Quechua people, before those ancient skills began to be lost to the influence of Western society, as described in Respect the Spindle (2009). In a world where "women...spun to eat and pay for the home they lived in," the Franquemont girls learned to spin alpaca fiber at or before the age of five years, hoping to reach a professional standard before adulthood. Spinning was part of their play. After the family's return to America, Franquemont attended Lehman Alternative Community School, Ithaca, then read liberal arts at Bard College at Simon's Rock.
caption: Chinchero spinner
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