Sash of woven silk and cotton.

1931 Description: Band of silk braid. The band is composed of two widths of braid joined together. The braid has been woven in red, yellow and green silk. The band has been lengthened by the attachment of an additional piece.

1975 Description: It is a warp-faced weave (silk warp) with a thick cotton weft. This gives it a ribbed quality. It is backed with linen which is machine stitched to the object. Cross stitched in mid-black on the lining are the initials 'FL'. All the material except possibly the cotton were imported to Guatemala. Perhaps this piece itself was imported but certainly it could have been worked on there as much work was done by Guatemalans for the Spanish colonists.

Dye analysis (Carlsen & Wenger, undertaken 1988, published 1991): the red spun silk has been dyed with cochineal.

Notes (1997): The additional piece noted in 1931 is seamed across the width about 12" from one end. The weft is fine, undyed white cotton and there appears to be about 8 threads used in one shoot; there are 15 shoots per inch and the outer edges are selvedges. The warp is coloured silk, Z2S; red, yellow and green and there are 92 warp threads per inch. From the left the sequence is:
(i) alternate green and yellow threads woven so that only green threads cover one shoot of weft with yellow covering the next shoot and then green and so on.
(ii) red threads
(iii) green
(iv) yellow
(v) green
(vi) red and yellow warped as alternate threads but woven so that only red threads cover one shoot of weft with yellow covering the next shoot and then red and so on.
(vii) as (v)
(viii) as (vi)
(ix) as (iii)
(x) as (ii)
(xi) as (i).