Ixtle is a natural fiber used by prehispanic cultures in Mexico. The most common uses were for weaving clothes and mainly to manufacture nets known as “ayates” used by women to carry the babies in their backs. With the conquest Spaniards brought new materials such as cotton and wool with better characteristics to be worn as dressing garments. This excluded ixtle from the manufacture of clothes and constraint its use almost exclusively to the manufacture of sacks. Many years later its use was even more sporadic as synthetic materials appeared and substituted natural fibers which couldn´t compete with the new production costs.

The future of the families living from this fiber and the fibers´ future was not encouraging, until global warming caused by the excesive use of natural resources and the huge emission of greenhouse gases made societies of many countries turn their eyes again to products obtained in sustainable ways.