Weaving in Takeo

As part of my volunteering with CFI, I took a trip to the Takeo Province in southeast Cambodia to visit the weavers who make all of the fabric. Takeo is a poor province south of Phnom Penh. It’s a flat, tan countryside, with strokes of green from rice paddies and coconut trees. Driving along the bumpy, dirt roads you are welcomed by Cambodians waving hello from under their bamboo stilted homes. As you look closer at each home you’ll notice that there is at least one loom, many times two or three.

Takeons are famous for their Ikat weaving. Every little girl and sometimes the boys know how to weave. While I was there I went from house to house to visit many of the weavers and dyers who make the fabric for our project. They are truly artists! They don’t use electrical machines at all—everything is done by wooden looms, the old fashioned way.

The process of making Ikat is very labor intensive. It’s not until you actually see it being made that you truly appreciate the skill and love that goes into each piece of fabric. You quickly realize too that these women are undercutting their profits in the market! They put many days and hours into the fabric and barely sell their work for anything. That’s where CFI comes in.

CFI is working with the weavers in Takeo to create cotton Ikat fabric (versus silk that they usually make) to be sold into the western fashion and home décor market. The goal is to sell modern, quality fabric, where the profits are fed back into the community—the weavers themselves will make a fair profit that actually accounts for all the hours they put into their work, as well, monies will be used for community projects around the village. We also want to train them in simple business practices that will allow them to understand how to account for their expenses and make a profit from what they sell. These are skills that many did not learn as they stopped going to school around age 13.

We are very lucky to be working with the AMAZING and INSPIRING Elizabeth Keister, owner and fashion designer for Wanderlust. She designs her apparel and has it all made here in Cambodia by various NGOs. She is the creative director for our project, helping CFI to create the fresh, bold designs. (Read more about her inspirational story…)

Here’s a little about the process, but it doesn’t BEGIN to capture the full scope.
- Buy cotton
- Dye cotton with natural or chemical free dye

- Weavers tie the cotton with the Ikat design (think tie-dying)

- Dye cotton again
- Sometimes the cotton goes back for another round of tying and then back for dying
- Set up the warp on the loom (about 3 days)


- Spin cotton


- Begin weaving on the loom—depending on the design and length it can take anywhere from 1 day to weeks/months to finish a piece of fabric.