Meet the Artisans
Meet the artisans behind Intertwined’s handmade home goods, bags, textiles, and gifts. Our artisan partners live and work in communities across Guatemala, Morocco, Nepal, Uganda, Mexico, and here in Greensboro, North Carolina. They are weavers, seamstresses, leatherworkers, potters, glassblowers, basket makers, and textile artists — each preserving traditional craft techniques while creating beautiful, useful pieces for modern life. Through direct artisan partnerships and fair trade practices, Intertwined helps support dignified work, fair wages, and long-term relationships with the people who make every piece by hand.
Introducing
Cuero Malec
Lorenzo Xum Ortiz is the founder of Cuero Malec, a leather workshop in Samayac, Guatemala. He began working with leather when he was around ten years old and now leads a skilled team of artisans who transform vintage Guatemalan textiles into one-of-a-kind bags and accessories.
Our partnership began in 2022, when Lorenzo turned a vintage orange huipil we had found at the market into a beautiful weekender bag almost overnight. That first piece helped us imagine what Intertwined’s Guatemalan textile and leather collection could become.
Today, Lorenzo and his team pair vintage huipiles, cortes, and other handwoven textiles with leather to create bags full of craft, character, and story. He also creates steady work in Samayac, mentors younger artisans, and built his workshop beside a school so children can see craftsmanship and entrepreneurship in action.
Every Cuero Malec piece carries the work of many hands—the women who originally wove the textiles, the partners who help source them fairly, and Lorenzo’s team, who gives them a second life in leather.
Introducing
Ruth & Namoi
Ruth & Naomi is a sewing and crafts cooperative in Chichicastenango, Guatemala, founded by local tailor and Methodist pastor Diego Chicoj. The cooperative began as a way to provide dignified work for widows of Guatemala’s Civil War—women who needed income, community, and a path forward after devastating loss.
Today, Ruth & Naomi has grown into a talented group of women and men who sew, weave, crochet, and embroider many of Intertwined’s Guatemalan home pieces, including cotton corte blankets, table runners, pillows, napkins, bags, and coasters.
Many of their pieces begin with vintage handwoven Mayan textiles, including cortes and huipiles. The artisans carefully cut, sew, join, and embellish these textiles, giving them a second life while honoring the traditions woven into them.
Every piece from Ruth & Naomi carries many hands and many stories: the original weaver, the people who help source the textiles fairly, and the artisans who transform them into something useful, beautiful, and full of meaning.
Introducing
Mala Thapa Magar
Mala Thapa Magar is the founder and CEO of Himalayan Allo Udhyog, a Nepali company that produces yarn, fabric, clothing, bags, and home goods from Himalayan nettle, also known as allo.
Raised by a single mother in Nepal, Mala understands how powerful steady work can be for women and families. Through her business, she helps create income opportunities for more than 600 people, most of them women in remote mountain villages where economic opportunities are limited.
Himalayan nettle is a sustainable perennial plant that grows quickly, requires far less water than cotton, and does not need pesticides. It can be harvested from the wild without destroying the plant, making it both an eco-friendly fiber and a meaningful source of rural income.
At Intertwined, we love Mala’s nettle pieces for their natural texture, quiet beauty, and deeper purpose: they support women, preserve traditional Nepali fiber work, and bring sustainable craft into everyday homes.
Introducing
Soufiane Belhayl
Soufiane Belhayl is a skilled leather artisan in Marrakech, Morocco, who began learning his craft when he was just twelve years old. Today, he works with a small team of artisan partners to create many of Intertwined’s Moroccan leather pieces, including kilim and leather bags, pillow covers, placemats, napkin rings, belts, and accessories.
His work brings together traditional Moroccan craftsmanship, full-grain leather, and vintage textiles. Many of the bags he makes for Intertwined feature panels from vintage kilim rugs, giving each piece rich texture, history, and one-of-a-kind character.
Soufiane has also become an important creative partner for Intertwined. He helps identify and coordinate with other Moroccan artisans who create pieces for our collection, from woven baskets to handwoven pillows and blankets.
Every piece Soufiane helps bring to Intertwined reflects skill, resourcefulness, and the beauty of Moroccan handmade traditions.
Introducing
Jun B'atz'
Jun B’atz’ is a weaving cooperative in Momostenango, Guatemala, led by Byron Ralac Arguetan. More than 20 families work together to create traditional wool blankets and rugs using techniques passed down through generations.
Each wool Momo blanket begins with wool from highland sheep. The wool is cleaned, brushed, hand-spun into yarn, dyed, and woven on large wooden foot looms. After weaving, the blankets are naturally felted in nearby volcanic hot springs, dried outdoors, and brushed again for softness.
The entire process takes several weeks and reflects the work of many skilled hands. These blankets are warm, durable, and rooted in a living Guatemalan textile tradition that Byron and the cooperative are helping preserve for the next generation.
Introducing
Our Afghan Friends
Our Afghan artisan partners arrived in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 2021 after fleeing Afghanistan when the Taliban returned to power. Because some of their family members remain in Afghanistan, we do not use their names publicly.
They brought with them extraordinary sewing skills, deep resilience, and a determination to rebuild their lives in a new country. In Greensboro, they have worked hard to adjust, learn, support their families, and create a sense of home again.
For Intertwined, they use their expert seamstress abilities to help assemble our mixed-textile pillows, combining vintage and new fabrics from around the world. Their careful work gives each pillow structure, beauty, and a second life as something useful for the home.
Their partnership is a reminder that handmade work can do more than create beautiful objects. It can help provide income, connection, dignity, and a way forward during seasons of profound change.
Introducing
Copavic
Copavic is a glass recycling and hand-blowing cooperative in Cantel, Guatemala, founded in 1976. For nearly fifty years, its artisans have transformed discarded glass into beautiful, durable glassware using traditional glassblowing techniques.
The process begins with recycled glass, which is sorted, cleaned, and melted at very high temperatures. Skilled artisans then shape each piece by hand before finishing it in ovens so the glass cools slowly and gains strength.
Today, Copavic employs around 40 artisans and provides on-site training, helping keep this specialized craft alive while creating steady work in the community. Each glass gives discarded material a second life and brings a little handmade beauty to the everyday table.
Introducing
Ride 4 a Woman
Ride 4 a Woman is a women’s empowerment organization in Buhoma, Uganda, founded by Evelyn Habasa to support women from the communities surrounding Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. What began as a small effort to help women earn income has grown into a vibrant nonprofit serving more than 300 women from 11 nearby communities.
Many of the women Ride 4 a Woman supports have faced significant challenges, including poverty, domestic violence, and HIV. Through sewing, basket weaving, hospitality, and other income-generating work, they are able to build skills, earn steady income, and support their families with greater independence and dignity.
For Intertwined, the women of Ride 4 a Woman create cheerful napkins and aprons using pedal-powered sewing machines, along with handwoven baskets in a variety of shapes and sizes. Each piece reflects both beautiful craftsmanship and the strength of women creating a better future for themselves and their families.
Introducing
Weavers Cooperative of Santo Tomas Jalieza
This women’s weaving cooperative in Santo Tomás Jalieza, a small town about 35 minutes from Oaxaca City, Mexico was created to help women work together, share opportunities more fairly, and preserve the beautiful backstrap loom traditions of their community.
Rather than competing with one another for orders or underpricing their work, the women cooperate so that orders are distributed equitably and pricing reflects the time, skill, and artistry behind each piece. This helps ensure that each weaver is paid fairly for her work while keeping this traditional craft strong for future generations.
Using backstrap looms, the artisans create handwoven cotton textiles with intricate patterns, rich texture, and a deep sense of place. For Intertwined, we especially love their table runners — beautiful, meaningful pieces that bring warmth, color, and a story of women working together to your table.
Introducing
San Antonio PalopÓ Ceramic Artisans
San Antonio Palopó Ceramic Artisans are a group of family-owned pottery workshops in San Antonio Palopó, a small town on the shores of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. The town is known for its colorful hand-painted ceramics, made from the volcanic clay found in the region and inspired by the beauty of the lake, mountains, and surrounding Mayan communities.
This ceramic tradition grew in the 1990s, when master ceramic artisan Ken Edwards helped teach local artisans new pottery techniques, including the use of molds and high-temperature firing. Today, several Guatemalan-owned workshops continue that work in their own family businesses, shaping, painting, glazing, and firing each piece by hand.
Intertwined now works with three San Antonio Palopó pottery workshops, each with its own hands and personality behind the pieces. Some pieces begin in molds for consistency, but every detail is finished by hand, then painted with the distinctive patterns and vibrant colors that make Palopó ceramics so recognizable. We especially love their signature teardrop designs — cheerful, practical, and full of the spirit of Lake Atitlán.
Introducing
Our Afghan Friends in Greensboro
Some of Intertwined’s artisan partners live much closer to home. After fleeing Afghanistan in 2021 when the Taliban returned to power, two skilled seamstresses resettled with their families here in Greensboro, North Carolina. We do not share their names publicly because some of their loved ones remain in Afghanistan, but their work has become a meaningful part of Intertwined’s story.
When we first began working together, we were looking for ways to create flexible, dignified work using the sewing skills they brought with them. Like many parts of a small business, that path has involved experimentation — including a few products that taught us as much as they sold. Over time, our collaboration has grown into work that feels much more naturally connected to Intertwined’s design language: mixed-textile pillows, framed vintage textiles, and pieces that combine fabrics from different parts of the world.
Their work is a reminder that artisan partnership does not always happen across oceans. Sometimes it happens across town, around a kitchen table, in the middle of starting over. We are grateful for their skill, resilience, and trust — and for the way their hands help us give old textiles new life.