Men are responsible for these fine-gauge, highly detailed knitted hats of the Andes. They knit them for their little children. You can learn a lot about them from Cynthia Gravelle Lecount’s book, Andean Folk Knitting: Traditions and Techniques from Peru and Bolivia. It’s out of print now, but you might be able to find it online or at a library.
Thanks to a friend who worked for an airline, we had a long weekend in Ecuador about 18 years ago. A street vendor in Quito had this hat for sale. My husband acted as interpreter for me. The vendor asked whom the hat would be for. Charles said, “It’s for my wife.”
“But it is too small for her,” said the vendor. Charles said that, yes, his wife knew that, but she wanted it anyway. “Why?” asked the vendor. He couldn’t think of the Spanish for ‘she collects stuff like that,’ so he said, “She wants to own it.” It was clear at this point that we were a few bricks short of a load.
The vendor quoted a price of around $35.00, which seemed like a great price to me. She explained that it was a good price, because there is a lot of work in one of these hats. “My wife um, makes things (he couldn’t think of the word for ‘knits’),” said Charles, “so she knows how much work is in it.” We paid, and I was one happy turista.
Charles loved the patterning and the fineness of the knitting, too, so we now have a good collection of these knitted hats, which I’ll post these next few days.