22nd April 2025
The shop is now on holiday until 19th May 2025. All current orders are being made up and dispatched as normal. If you have any queries, please contact me at
carol@fellviewfibres.co.uk
This colourway is the first instalment of the Ancient Artists Rolag Club. The colourway is based on the colours in an ancient Wari Quipu. A quipu, or knot-record, was a method used by Wari and other ancient Andean cultures (they are especially linked to the Inca) to keep records and communicate information. Using a wide variety of colours, strings, and sometimes several hundred knots all tied in various ways at various heights, quipu could record dates, statistics, accounts, and even represent, in abstract form, key episodes from traditional folk stories and poetry.
A typical quipu consists of a horizontal string or even wooden bar, from which hang any number of knotted and coloured strings made from either cotton or wool. Some of the larger quipu have as many as 1500 strings, and these could also be woven in different ways suggesting this, too, had a meaning. The various colour shades, ply’s and knot styles used could also carry a specific meaning.
Sadly, the Conquistadors actively destroyed quipus, as they were seen as a part of the non-Christian indigenous religion. Now there are only a few hundred remaining.
These wonderful artifacts may not have been necessarily designed as a work of art, but personally I find them beautiful and intriguing.
These quipu inspired rolags are made from superfine merino, merino, and luxurious red eri silk.
