Zhinv Community in Huashui Town

The plain natural village in Huashui Town, Dongyang City, Zhejiang Province preserves the oldest and largest number of "Weaver Girl Community" in the province.

Huashui town

On a drizzly morning, we came to Huangtianfan Market in Huashui Town. "In this weather, those old people are weaving at home," said a villager. Sure enough, in Pingyuan village, we met those "weavers". "We almost don't have to go out to sell, but people take the initiative to find the village to buy." Wu Shuo, a 7 1 year-old weaver, sometimes relies on luck to sell homespun in the market. If you are lucky, you can sell a lot in one morning, but if you are not good, you can't sell a horse in one day. Therefore, in the case of stable customers, they all chose to weave at home and handed over the sales link to specialized vendors. Although the price is low, a "plain cloth" costs only fifty or sixty yuan, and a "single quilt" with relatively complicated patterns costs only seventy or eighty yuan. However, it is quite cost-effective for the old people to sit on the ground well and weave a "plain cloth" a day. A homespun is 2. 1 foot long, which is equivalent to more than 6 meters, just enough to make sheets.

This morning, Wu sold six or seven bumpkins and two merchants from Gaopinglai at home. Without much bargaining, he bought a plain cloth with "four eyes" woven with silk rice and five or six cotton yarns. Wu Shuo, although she can weave more than a dozen colors, at present, these two kinds of flowers are woven more. This year, she has woven more than 100 homespuns with a length of more than 700 meters. "In the village, she is the most this year. Everyone knows who knits more and who knits less. " The 73-year-old Wang told us that although times are changing, the number of weavers is still an important criterion to measure the ingenuity of the weaver girl. Selling cloth not only shows that this person is hardworking, but also shows that her craftsmanship is good and fast.

Wu looks thin, but when she sits on the loom, her thin body shows infinite strength. 10 shuttle is filled with 10 yarns, which are arranged neatly on her right hand side. When to use which one, she will come at random, and we will soon be dazzled. She is busy with the "four-eyed" quilt, because there are too many colors and the progress is very slow. Look at those colors, colorful but very elegant. His wife, 72-year-old Lu Funai, said that these colors were all matched by her wife. Although these "Weavers" can't read or understand any aesthetic principles, they are all self-taught in color matching and can play as they please. They look very harmonious and there is no confusion.

Ruff Nye proudly said that his wife's craft is good in the village. The homespun she weaves is not only beautiful in color, but also extremely strong. "It can be used for more than 20 years without breaking." Here's a trick, that is, the reed on Wu Yong's loom is made of iron wire and she invented it herself. Ruff Nye said that the traditional reed is made of silk, which is easy to be damaged, time-consuming to maintain, and the woven cloth is not tight enough. There is no such reed in the market now. Once, she tried to find some raw materials from a weaving factory and made this reed. After the trial, the effect is very good, and it saves much effort. "There are only two such reeds in Quanhuashui Town and only one in Pingyuan Village." Ruff Nye also said that a few years ago, some people thought it was too troublesome to weave homespun by hand, so they used machines to weave it. As a result, they found that it was not as good as hand weaving, so they disappeared again.