Most of our textiles have been made using a technique called "Telar de cintura", or waist weaving. It has been a fundamental method for the development of textiles by Mexican Indigenous people for many centuries. Creating textiles this way is considered to be a "woman's domain", but there are one or two exceptions.

Waist weaving consists mainly of 2 horizontal sticks placed parallel at a distance from each other. The sticks are then tied with thread, forming a frame (this will be the size of the textile item). The ends of one stick are then tied around a vertical element, which can be a pole, but tying around a tree is the most common practice. The other stick is tied around the waist of the textile maker, which allows them to create a fair amount of tension on the frame by leaning their bodies backwards.

The desired colour cotton thread is wrapped between the sticks in a "even and odd number" manner: Even numbers run through the top of the frame, while odd numbers run at the bottom, thus creating a space between the two thread grids. Another stick with the rest of the thread gets passed through the grids from one side to another, each timed been tightened to the bottom with a "machete stick".

Waist weaving has some great advantages! It is extremely versatile and popular amongst artisans, as they create most of their clothes this way. The auxiliary sticks using this method are considered "extension arms" to the artisan, which allows them to improvise and execute difficult manual techniques and patterns. It is very difficult to achieve the same results using other methods.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that long blankets and jorongos are made, the tension generated in the weaving frames is limited to the physical weight of the artisan; the longer the blanket, the heavier the artisan needs to be! Furthermore, the arm span of the artisan determines the width of the item to be created; usually between 60cm and 70cm.