One chilly evening my friend’s father lamented one of the drawbacks of evolution: We lost our fur. Thankfully, out of bare-skinned necessity were born a myriad of snugly innovations.
This weekend the 26th annual Wool Festival at Taos invites you to celebrate 400- plus years of textile tradition in New Mexico, Colorado and Texas. Breeders, fiber artists, and a few of the furry four-leggeds that make all of this possible, will be on hand Saturday (Oct. 3) from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Sunday (Oct. 4) from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. at Kit Carson Park, 211 Paseo del Pueblo Norte.
The event is presented by the Mountain and Valley Wool Association and entry is free of charge.
“The festival is really alive, really fresh, there is something for everybody,” says Merce Mitchell, a local fiber artist who has participated at the festival for the last 11 years. “Luckily we have the tradition, but it is being experimented with and expanded. People are doing the craziest things — spinning and knitting wildly! We are pushing the medium from craft to art.”
Over 60 vendors will display knitted, felted, woven and crocheted winter garments, tapestries, rugs and artworks. Yarns, both chemically and naturally died, and mounds of raw wool fleece will also be available, along with tools, equipment and books for both budding and advanced fiber artists. Exotic fibers to sink fingers into will include mohair, cashmere, alpaca, llama, buffalo and Angora rabbit.
“Because everyone is juried in, the quality of art is very high and vendors made everything in their booths,” says MVWA board member Liesel Orend. “A lot of them are ranchers who have raised the sheep and processed the wool themselves.”
The Fiber Critters Showcase offers a chance to visit some of the animals behind our beloved garments. Karen F. Young of Morningstar Alpacas has displayed her alpacas at the festival for the last seven years. Among her flock of 27 are six babies.
“Alpacas stand during the first hour after being born. It’s amazing to see them hit the ground, organize those long legs and figure out how to run,” Young says.
Alpacas come in 27 different colors and their fiber, shorn once a year, can be spun thin enough for a wedding dress. It’s a “medullated fiber,” meaning it has air pockets that enhance its insulating qualities.
Demonstrations of sheep-shearing, weaving, felting and other techniques will take place at individual booths as well as every half-hour at a central tent with a schedule posted outside. Watch also for displays on natural dyeing, carding and several spinning procedures, including one where angora yarn is spun straight from the rabbit upon someone’s lap.
Tempo music columnist Rima Ralff is also a local spinner who creates the colorful “Jewels” line of thick spun wool for La Lana Wools. The strands are playful and clumpy, with unpredictable twists and variations. Most often used for hat bands, purse handles, scarf ends and other embellishments on finished products, only the truly adventuresome attempt to knit it.
Mitchell also hand spins her own unique yarns.
“I spin because you can get a creative idea in your head and give it a really quick expression,” she says. “You can make a skein in just a few hours, as opposed to felting which can take up to two months to make a piece.”
A Handspun Yarn Show and contest will take place in the show tents on Saturday, alongside contests for Garment and Home Accessories and Fleece. Plenty of food vendors and live music will round out the day’s events. In conjunction with this year’s festival was the Earth’s Palette Natural Dye and Color Conference, which took place Sept. 26-28 at the Sagebrush Inn.
More than 50 people pre-registered and teachers included pioneers in the field such as Louisa Gelenter, John Marshall and Pamela Feldman. Workshops included Lichen Dyes, Navajo Natural Dyes and Cochineal Dyeing. Farmed in South America, the cochineal bug is the size of a small ant and when ground up into a powder and prepared as a tea, provides the foundation for colors from orange to purple. Its use dates back to the 15th century when it was coveted by the Aztec and Mayan people of Central and North America.
“The different colors come when you change the pH by adding a little acid or alkaline or adding some iron,” Orend explains. “When it was discovered, it was huge because it made the first brilliant scarlet red and everyone wanted that color.”
More than 30 in-depth workshops on everything from Andean Back Strap Weaving to the Art and Science of Knitting Button Holes are also conducted through the Wool Festival for a separate fee. They overlap somewhat with the Dye Conference offerings.
Galleries that will be having shows related to the Natural Dye Conference and Wool Festival include Millicent Roger’s Museum, Jewelz of Taos, Weaving Southwest, J Fine Art, Encore Gallery, La Lana Wools, The Taos Gallery, Wilder Nightingale Fine Art and RB Ravens.
Photo by Rick RomancitoFor more information, call (800) 684-0340 or visit online www.taoswoolfestival.org.
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