It was Doña Margarita Lamos’ two needles that started this family story. Gladys’ mother not only made bags to carry her father in fique, but also mastered this technique to make mats, and she, her husband Gabriel and now their daughter Juliet Zulay inherited her knowledge.
However, Gabriel went a step further and tried his hand at weaving with knots on a vertical loom, which has become the hallmark of this workshop at the entrance of this weaving town, as Curiti is known.
Many of his creations decorate farms in the hot lands of the country and have also expanded the portfolio with handbags and fique products made to order, as well as collaborating with interior designers such as Monica Urquijo from Barranquilla, with whom Gabriel delved into the weaving of abaca, another natural fiber originating in the Philippines.
His creations can be found in the United States, Spain, Mexico and Germany, and fortunately for him, an unexpected situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic meant many more orders due to the desire to decorate the home that became explicit with this planetary disease.
Everything is done inside the workshop, so while he is making the cabuya his fellow artisans are weaving with the other looms, others comb the fique and dye it and the last ones spin it, a team that works together of 15 artisans who are inside the workshop and indirectly another 60 women who spin, weave with two needles and make bags; Gladys charges and Gabriel teaches because as he says, if one learned from others one has to teach others because one dies and the work remains.