Chinchero · Sacred Valley, Peru
The first collection, born in the highlands of Chinchero.
Q'olle is where MamaQuilla began. It took shape in Chinchero, a village in the Sacred Valley of Peru, with the family who introduced Cat-Vi to the art of backstrap weaving. What follows is the story of that place, the women who made these pieces, and the month that gave rise to everything after.
Chinchero · March 2025
Chinchero sits high in the Sacred Valley, in the mountains near Cusco. It was there, in March 2025, that Cat-Vi spent a month living with Norberta and her family, three generations under one roof who gather each day at the workshop that is the heart of their life together.
The days were shared as much as worked. Meals, stories, and laughter passed alongside long hours at the loom, with cups of muña tea against the cold of the highlands. The family spoke of how the pandemic had changed their lives, as visitors grew scarce and the months of work behind a single handwoven piece went unseen.
Living alongside the family and learning at the loom, Cat-Vi came to understand how much time and skill a single piece holds. In the markets of Cusco, and across Peru more widely, she saw how little that work is recognized, and how much of what is sold as handmade is not.
The idea of a collection came from Norberta herself. As the eldest of her siblings, she carries much of the responsibility for a large family, and she had long wanted to find steady ways for their work to reach people who would value it. She asked, more than once, that she and Cat-Vi make something together. Cat-Vi, new to all of this, hesitated, and then said yes.
Q'olle was the answer they made together: a first collection so that this craft could be seen, valued, and fairly paid.
From that one small beginning, so much has opened. It is what brought MamaQuilla to life, and what brings it to you here.
The women of Chinchero
These pieces were made with the women of Norberta's family. Norberta, the matriarch, learned backstrap weaving (tejido plano) and natural dyeing as a girl and now works to pass that knowledge on. Vilma, her sister-in-law, weaves traditional Quechua symbols into her work. Gladys, married into the family, brings a warmth and patience that meet at the loom. Their full stories live on our Artisan Stories page.
Antique textiles · Q'olle
Q'olle holds two kinds of pieces. Some we co-created with the family, weaving side by side. Others were already there when Cat-Vi arrived: antique textiles the family had collected over time, chosen for their texture, their color, and the stories held within them.
The ponchos are woven from baby alpaca, soft and naturally thermo-regulating, warm in the cold and breathable in milder weather. They are made to be worn loose and generous, falling easily across many different bodies.
The beanies are made from the threads left over from the ponchos, so that nothing is wasted. They hold the same warmth and care as the larger pieces.
The skirts are made from antique textiles, mostly sheep wool dyed with natural pigments, which Cat-Vi gathered and chose with care. We did not want to cut them, because these cloths hold a great deal of time, skill, and cultural meaning, and cutting them would risk their integrity. The skirts come in fixed sizes, limited in number. We trust that each one will find the person it is meant for.
Q'olle is a beginning, and it carries the honesty of one. When Cat-Vi made this first collection she was still new to the world of natural fibers and natural dyeing, and the collection grew alongside her learning. MamaQuilla has deepened in step with that understanding, and we share this openly, because the work, like Cat-Vi herself, is still growing.
Almost every piece is one of a kind. Sold pieces remain visible as Archive.
When you choose a piece from Q'olle, your support reaches Norberta and her family in Chinchero directly, and helps keep Andean weaving and natural dyeing alive in the hands of the women who carry them. These pieces hold the place they came from. To wear one is to keep its story moving.
Q'olle takes its name from a yellow flower of the Andes, used in natural dyeing. During Cat-Vi's month in Chinchero the flower was in bloom, and the women of the family would walk into the forest to harvest the flowers for dyeing. Plant dyeing follows the rhythm of the seasons, drawing on what the land offers when it offers it. The colors of this first collection came from that time of year, made in step with the cycles of the land they come from.
Textiles as vessels of story, memory, and relationship.
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We write rarely, and with care.
