Like many people, my husband and I have been using our coronavirus-enforced seclusion to sort and tidy. The other day while cleaning out my study, I came upon this photo that my husband took when we traveled to Peru nearly two decades ago.

I think this woman was selling her wares in the marketplace in Cusco. She was also using her time productively by doing some spinning. You can see she is holding a drop spindle in her right hand, but I think she’s gotten to the stage of removing the spun yarn once the spindle is full and coiling it into a hank, which is what we see wrapped around her left hand.

She seems to be spinning with wool–maybe alpaca?–that was dyed before being spun: “dyed in the wool” actually.