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"Thai silk is the first item featuring in the shopping list of the sophisticated Thailand visitor. Thailand is world famous for its beautiful home decoration designs. The legendary Jim Thompson made Thai silk a household word around the world. Soon Thai silk may have a follower in Mutmee of Thailand. OpenmindProjects and its international volunteers have found this hidden treasure in Thailand, the ancient Mutmee designs, textiles made of cotton or silk, still made and worn in the villages in the poor Isan, Northeast Thailand."
The history of MutMee!
Mutmee is part of the cultural heritage of the people living in Northeast Thailand, who come from Laos, and brought their weaving skills with them. Mutmee is a unique silk or cotton fabric and called Mutmee because of the process by which the threads are tied according to the desired pattern before they are dyed.
In the past natural dyes were derived from roots, vegetables or earth. The visitor may still find villages where this technique and tradition is upheld. The prevailing Mutmee color is indigo blue and extracted from the local indigo plant. This is the genuine, handmade Mutmee.
Typical Mutmee designs are non figurative, abstract or with nature motives such as birds, elephants, pythons, trees or flowers. The motives of Mutmee Thai silk have been handed down for centuries from mother to daughter. The designs and patterns are created mainly by using various colors in the weft of the fabric.
Mutmee was traditionally made for domestic use. Village women still wear it as skirts, sarongs.
Mutmee of Northeast Thailand, Isan.
Thailand's northeast was not always the arid and open landscape that it is today. 40 years ago forests were abundant. Overpopulation and unsustainable development brought it to the poor state it is today.
Mutmee has been promoted beyond the villages, in an initiative by the Thai 
Queen, Sirikit, in an effort to improve the local economy in Isan, the poorest region of the Thailand.
Mutmee Today!
Mutmee is today used by Thai men as well as women. The Royal Family regularly wears clothes made from Mutmee silk. Mutmee shirts are accepted as formal wear and seen at local social events.
Efforts have been spent to design Mutmee for weddings, temple ceremonies, official meetings but despite attractive designs and colors, appealing to Western and modern taste, Mutmee has not yet become the same export success as Thai silk mainly due to alack of marketing resources and efforts. Like Thai silk Mutmee textiles lend themselves just as well to home decoration products such as table cloths, curtains, cushion covers and more.
OpenmindProjects and Mutmee of Northeast Thailand, Isan
OpenmindProjects supports sustainable economic development in poor and rural villages; education, Eco and other projects, with the help of international volunteers, see and http://www.itinisan.org/, http://www.openmindprojects.org.
OpenmindProjects promotes the hidden jewel of Thai handicraft, Mutmee from the Northeast of Thailand, Isan.
- We do so in this website and by inviting people abroad to import Mutmee, woven in the traditional way by village women.
- We do so by encouraging and helping villages to promote and sell the Mutmee using media such as eBay. The closer the village women get to the market, the more of the income they can keep. The curse of he villagers, farmers has historically been their dependence on traders and middlemen who control the prices of their products and therefore are the ones who make the profit.