The Lourdes Montinola Piña Weaving Competition is on! The contest is open to all artisans regardless of the location who weave, dye, embroider, or embellish piña, and get a chance to win cash prizes!

Lourdes Montinola is the author of Piña which is a seminal book presenting pineapple cloth as a national treasure. Her main goal is to encourage young talents to take up piña weaving as a craft and vocation. Through this competition, we will be able to revitalize piña cloth production and stimulate fresh creativity expressed through new forms.
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Guidelines to follow:
1) A minimum requirement
The cloth to be entered into consideration for the prizes has to be at least two (2) meters long. It can be longer. There is no stricture about the width.

2) Quality of making
The cloth will be evaluated for excellence of execution of the entire range of processes used; including the knotting of the fiber itself; the control over the weaving tension (even if the intended tension is to produce loose weave); the balance between the tensile strengths of piña and other fibers that may be woven with the pineapple fiber to make the cloth; the dyeing or other forms of coloring; the physical relationship of embellishment to woven cloth; and so forth.
3) Quality of innovation and use of imagination
The cloth will be evaluated for the freshness and excellence of the ways of handling piña as a material. Thus, the Award will commend the creation of blends with other natural fibers (Musa textilis or abaka, cotton, linen, ramie, silk and so forth, so long as piña makes up more than 50% of the body of the cloth); of new possibilities for couture; and of new procedures to be applied in the making of pineapple fiber cloth.
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Three awards will be given to artists and artisans who work —singly or collaboratively—to create extraordinary piña cloth on October 2018. The winning entries will be exhibited at the annual Likhang HABI Market Fair at the Glorietta Activity Center from October 12 to 14, 2018. Winning works will remain the property of their makers after HABI fully documents them. Cash prizes are 50,000.00 Php. for first prize; 30,000.00 and 20,000.00 for second and third prizes.