"Dago te"

Welcome, I'm Zarrin Yelloweagle and I'm a weaver of exquisite traditional and contemporary Navajo rugs using natural and hand dyed Churro wools. My specialization is the multi-pattern and different techniques that come with regional styles. I incorporate traditional and contemporary designs. All of my weaving is done on a home-made vertical loom.

I come from a family of four generations of weavers, which is somewhat unusual because I am of Chiricahua Apache ancestry from the village of Cibecue, located in the White Mountain reservation of Arizona, an area of mostly basket weavers. My maternal grandmother was a Dine from Chinle, AZ. It was she who taught my mother how to weave, as she was taught by her mother. Weaving had been passed down from generation to generation. At about the age of six, my mother made a small loom and placed it beside hers. I learned to weave sitting at her side. I often woke up early on summer mornings to the sound of her batten beating rhythmically as she wove. My first rug was a basic band rug. By the time I was nine, I could do complicated designs. Weaving has always been part of my life and family and I hope that it will continue with my granddaughter.

Weaving can be very time consuming and with each piece there are different challenges. Some challenges are being able to create intricate designs in spaces determined by the dimension of the warp, others are color coordination, weaving techniques such as plain weave, twill, double twill, and the double-faced weaving. All of my pieces are of museum quality, and one of a kind, that are both functional as rugs, or decorative wall hangings.

Aside from the art of weaving, I also learned to do beadwork. I do a variety of barrettes, belt buckles, necklaces and earrings using size 13 cut beads. I am a self-taught contemporary artist specializing in pastel drawings and oil paintings. The two things in my lifetime, as far as my art goes, are to write a book and the other is to weave a huge, huge rug. I remember my grandmother weaving a rug so large that my grandfather had to use horses to harness and tighten her loom.