About fifteen years ago, sixteen women from Santa Apolonia, Chimaltenango, joined together to form a group and start working with Mayan Hands. These women's huipils are striking and very different from those of most Maya villages. They embroider their huipils in a painstaking way, counting threads on the white, commercial cloth they use, as if on a grid, and embroidering in this fashion beautiful geometric figures and birds. Furthermore, as opposed to other Mayan huipils in Guatemala, the huipil from Santa Apolonia is worn with the embroidered section on the back rather than on the front.
Because of their expertise with embroidery, we asked these women to try their hands at embroidering t-shirts, a difficult task in view of the more stretchy nature of the knit t-shirt material. They turned out a fantastic product and we quickly realized that their artistry went beyond the embroidery itself. These women are remarkably skilled at combining colors which makes their work truly outstanding.
We have been selling their embroidered t-shirts for all these years. Often, the designs come from blouses or huipils of other Mayan villages. Sometimes we create new designs, such as our "children of the world" t- shirt (a pyramid of children of different races holding up the world) which gives expression to the human yearning for peace. In the past year, the women started incorporating beads into their embroidered t-shirts. The new beaded t-shirts look festive and elegant! Also, this year the women from Santa Apolonia have started working on embroidered blouses with a beach design (star fish, shells, snails) around the collar.