Ana Moreira Mota

Of the sheep to the loom

Ana Moreira Mota was born in 1935 in the parish of Peroselo, where she still lives and works. At thirteen, she learned from her sister how to tame the sheep’s wool and fight with the big loom 1.80m wide, that she still uses until today, from one end to the other. Customers thank for it.
Nowadays she no longer helps on the sheep shearing. Friends offer her the wool and Ana does the rest: washes and dries, separates the wool and cards, spins and weaves. She doesn’t know how long it takes to do a piece and there are days when she only devotes herself to farming, «I like to wake up and decide what I am going to do that day», she says.

The last wool weaver in the entire county is increasingly sought after and has no products in stock, «when I go to the fairs, the ones I carry are already sold out, customers make the order and pick it up on the next year».