Taos is located 40 miles south of the Colorado border, 70 miles north of Santa Fe and 125 miles north of Albuquerque at the northern end of the Rio Grande river valley in the high mesa plateau which forms the foothills to the northern extension of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains.  The area has been occupied since the Taos Pueblo was built 1,000 years ago and is renowned for its magical light, endless vistas of high mountains, basaltic mesas, rolling plains, juniper covered foothills, and the many small, out of the way Spanish towns with their 400 year legacy of weaving, painting and carving, colcha embroidery, sheep raising, and regional agriculture. The “Grand Canyon of the Rio Grande”, is 600 foot deep gorge carved by the river of the same name and flows south into the broader Espanola Valley.  

Since the late 1500’s the area has also been home to the Churro sheep breed. The Churro sheep has played a significant role in the survival and growth of the Spanish Rio Grande style weaving, Navajo weaving and tapestry and the contemporary creative culture and economy of the Taos region. The economy of most of the northern half of the state as well as the adjoining Indian Reservations of the four corners area, southern Utah and Colorado have also benefited.

The Taos Wool festival was founded and is produced by the Mountain and Valley Wool Association an outgrowth of an economic development project sponsored by Christian Community Services in Alamosa, Colorado. The original goal was to connect regional animal fiber producers with regional artists for the economic benefit of all. The Taos Wool Festival does not allow any imported wool or animal fibers; its sole purpose is to promote small producers in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, who are mainly the hand spinning market.

The first Taos Wool Festival in 1984 hosted 15 booths of New Mexico fiber, suppliers and artists.  The next year the program expanded to include wool working demonstrations and a fashion show.  By the third year shearing demonstrations, additional fiber animals and an award banquet had been included.  In 2001 the by-laws were amended to include both Texas and Colorado fiber growers, suppliers and artists.  This year’s program included: 

• Sheep shearing and Fiber Critter Showcase

• Wool show and fleece contest

• Handspun yarn show and contest

• Garment and home accessories contests

• Silent auction of fiber, fiber animals, dyes and finished products

• Kids hands on activities

• Wool working demos

• Live music and superb lamb burgers

• Workshops(½ day, full day and multiple day) before and after the festival

Since the festival features primarily southwest fiber, the predominant sheep breed shown is Churro along with a healthy seasoning of alpaca, Cormo, angora goat, cashmere, Pygora goat and angora rabbit.  Over the years the festival has evolved into value added products, clothing , blankets, rugs and yarn for knitting, weaving and felting and away from tapestry products, tools and basic elements. There are still plenty of fleeces, looms (primarily inkle and small tapestry looms) spindles and spinning wheels to be found. 

A Sign Outside One of the Booths

The majority of the 67 booths this year were run by women, most of who had started out in fiber raising end and expanded their product to include both fiber and finished product. All of the booth presenters are juried into the Wool Festival and most have been coming for at least the past three years if not since the original festival. I could have spent a lifetime just getting to know each of these strong resilient women, but instead selected a handful that to me seemed to represent the range of ages, experience, goals and lifestyles that typified them all.

The majority of the 67 booths this year were run by women, most of who had started out in fiber raising end and expanded their product to include both fiber and finished product.  All of the booth presenters are juried into the Wool Festival and most have been coming for at least the past three years if not since the original festival.  I could have spent a lifetime just getting to know each of these strong resilient women, but instead selected a handful that to me seemed to represent the range of ages, experience, goals and lifestyles that typified them all.

Jeannette Larson and her partner Shawn Hoefer of Common Thread fiber arts (formerly Laffing Horse Farms) have had a booth at Taos since 2003.   

When she was 12, Jeannette learned to belly dance, and as an adult started out as a belly dancer at Renaissance fairs and from there went on to making belly dancing costumes and selling them.  She met her partner Shawn at the Colorado Renaissance festival and they soon combined their interests in raising animals, fiber arts and wood-working.  During the 2005-2006 seasons they will do 27 weekends of shows combining their love of fiber and their love of Renaissance festivals.  This is made possible by their daughter Radharani who wants nothing more at present than to stay home on the farm, caring for the animals, spinning, crocheting, weaving and helping Michael in the wood shop.  Jeannette and Michael were pleased to be courted this year by the Louisiana Renaissance Festival, and will move on from Taos to a two month residency in Louisiana.  They own a permanent booth at the Colorado Renaissance festival where they demonstrate, sell their farm products and teaching weaving and spinning.  They also maintain an active internet sales site and have seen their international sales increase to 4%of their total sales in the past year. 

The first year Laffing Horse Farm entered the Taos Wool Festival, planning to sell Llama fiber from their own animals, Jeannette ended up with some red mohair yarn and a crochet hook.  In the back of the car on their drive down from La Junta, Colorado to the festival Jeannette created an “Arachne Wrap” which took first place in the crochet division at the festival, thus guaranteeing a positive experience for their first year. 

Since then both their fiber flock and their skills have increased and they currently raise and create products from a mixed variety of animals including Jacob sheep, Lamancha dairy goats, Angora goats, llamas, angora rabbits, and horses along with large guard dogs. When asked to describe the personalities of their animals, Jeannette mentioned that Jacob sheep personalities are “very goat like and smart” and that their Corridale ewe is a specialist in stealing grain from the feeder. Another character in their flock is Homer, the CVM chocolate ram along with bright eyed, cheerful Penny. Both Jeannette and Michael agreed that the Angora goats, which they had gotten to control weeds, are fussier eaters than the sheep and not nearly as much fun. Unfortunately, their 16 acres in Colorado is dry, with no water source. Due to the ongoing drought conditions they have been forced to cull their flock from 108 animals down to less than 40. They are in the process of gradually moving themselves and their animals to Arkansas where they will be able to have more land, plus a creek and a spring. They hope to accomplish the move within five years so they will do fewer shows and spend less time on the road. Internet sales should assist in making them better financially stable. 

In the meantime, Jeannette teaches weaving and specializes in rug weaving and weaving “for fun” on inkle and rigid heddle looms. She also teaches crochet and body work for fiber artists. With a background in applied kinesiology and yoga, along with her belly dancing, her class this year at the festival generated much laughter and fun. Her crochet classes in basic techniques and crocheted edgings were also full.

Jeannette spins thick bulky wool for her “fleecyful” rugs which she weaves on a Newcombe rug loom. She loves the “comfort, the feel of a soft wool rug” under her bare feet. Since her rugs use a cotton warp and raw wool handspun warp, they felt in the washing machine and then are machine washable. She weaves custom rugs for some customers in addition to those she weaves using colors her daughter dyes for her. Jeannette also spins for yarn for the triangular shawls she makes on looms Michael produces.  Other products from the farm include beautifully finished Ashford spinning wheels, Michael’s peacock spindles, goats’ milk soaps and body care products, sheep covers, rugs, shawls, spun fiber, shepherds crooks and animal keeping tools.   

Common Threads also sells a tri-loom kit at shows that includes free learn to weave lessons.  Jeannette says the beauty of a tri-loom is that “no warping is required, you just weave and go. When not in use, the tri-loom hangs easily against the wall and a living and evolving work of art.” This fits in with her feeling that fiber arts should be part of the “whole rich beautiful tapestry of existence.”

Jeannette weaving on a tri loom on a cold wet Sunday in Taos

Sharon White has been attending the Taos Wool Festival for 20 of the last 23 years.  Located in Mora, New Mexico, Sharon raises Churro and Churro Cotswold cross sheep and uses her product to make hand spun, hand knit garments and rugs.  She sells both her own and custom designed rugs and Churro and Churro Cotswold sheep and fleece.

“My weaving has evolved into doing "bound weave" rugs, and I am now concentrating on that process.  My aim is to produce a beautiful, durable rug by having control of
the entire process, from the sheep to the finished product” explains Sharon.

Her “sheep rug” was the featured design for this year’s wool festival

t-shirts and will probably be the logo for the coming year (s).  She described the rug as a “bound weave summer winter design she made up as she went along”.  It was made on a Cranbrook 4 harness loom as are all her blankets and rugs.  She uses only her own hand raised, hand spun wool for her weaving.

Sharon White’s rug which served as the logo for this year’s Taos Wool festival

Sharon also did the hand shearing demonstration on the festival stage using hand clippers and many years of experience to deftly seat and restrain an active yearling Cotswold lamb as she removed the coat.  She prefers hand shearing because it “allows you to get closer to the skin” but it does require “a lot of wrist action.”  She estimates that she spends about 20-30 minutes shearing a sheep and can only do five or six a day.

When talking about her sheep she explained that she had brought in the Cotswold to improve the softness of the Churro sheep. Although the cross breeding did improve the quality of her fleeces, it also led to some unexpected problems .  According to Sharon, “the Churros, a primitive breed, are smart, if they sense danger they’ll run home.  The Cotswold’s are lazy, they run a hundred yards and then stop to look around and see if they need to keep running.  In bear country where I live this is not a survival characteristic.”

At “almost 70” she admitted that she has had to cull her herd down from 120 to 40 sheep this year because she “just doesn’t seem to have the energy to shear more than that.”

Sharon White of Three Bags Full shearing a yearling lamb

Pat Clauser of Corrales, New Mexico sells Navajo Churro registered fleeces, yarns and breeding stock in black, moorit brown and white.  At present, she has 70 sheep and sells her excess rams on the reservation.  She maintains close contact with many Navajo weavers and sells her fleeces to local weavers on and off the reservation as well as at the Wool Festival.   Because of the double coat characteristics, and the low lanolin content of the fleeces, Churro makes an ideal multi-purpose fiber for weaving and knitting in the dry southwest.

 Like most shepherds, Pat is able to identify the individual fleeces she sells and knows the characteristics of each animal’s fiber. After much consultation and fondling, my husband and I (both Navajo weavers) bought “Bill” a white Churro ram fleece and a lovely red brown moorit ewe fleece whose name I didn’t catch.  While we were talking and fondling, we managed to spindle spin samples of several other fleeces so that other customers could see what the yarn would look like.

Pat Clauser of Clauser Farms, Corrales, New Mexico

Elsa Sheep and Wool is one of the longest attendees at the festival, with owner Elsa having attended since 1985. 

Elsa Sheep and Wool Company is a working ranch in Bayfield, Colorado specializing in purebred Cormo Sheep and woolens. 

The entire product comes from fiber produced by the white Cormo of Elsa’s ranch or the gray Cormo fleeces of Henry and Theresa Ortman in Montana.    The fiber is sent to mills in upstate New York for processing and woolen spinning for the yarn and worsted spinning for the product yarn  and then hand knit by local knitters.

The Elsa Sheep and Wool Company features  fine and exceedingly soft and cozy socks, gloves, mittens, sweaters, vests, neck-warmers  and scarves of  100% pure Cormo wool in shades ranging from a soft creamy white, through medium grey to a dark and almost charcoal black grey along with beautifully spun Cormo yarn in the same colors.  Since both days of the festival were cold and rainy this year business was brisk for Elsa.

Elsa from Elsa Sheep and Wool Company wearing one of her sweaters

This year there were two booths featuring lace knitting and knitted lace products. Galina Khmeleva and George Girard of Skaska Designs booth featured fiber, fleeces, and books on Orenburg lace knitting along with spinning supplies for Galina’s traditional Orenburg shawls. In addition to this booth there was also Claire Walker’s booth which featured a variety of beautifully knitted original lace designs in alpaca and wool handspun yarn.

Claire developed her seven animal alpaca herd under the supervision and friendship of Chris Switzer of Switzer Land Alpacas.  Although Claire does primarily commission work and gets customers for her custom designed work through word of mouth referrals, her work in knitted lace is also shown in Chris Switzer’s latest book.

In 1992 she attended the Taos Wool festival, met Chris and was introduced to some of Chris’ alpacas.  The following year the Switzer’s brought along a black alpaca that followed Claire home, and so began her involvement with alpaca.  Since that fateful day Claire has written articles for the “Alpacas” magazine and currently serves as the Mountain Valley Wool Association’s data base keeper. 

She has worked on expanding her repertoire of skills and  products, and as a result, has had several donated pieces earn up to $1000.00 in fund raising auctions.  In addition to designing and creating top end one of a kind pieces, Claire teaches half day and full day spindle spinning classes. Students follow every step of the process from fleece to carding, creating a roving and spinning the finished yarn.

She uses her own custom made spindles for the class and teaches a spindle spinning (modified park and draft) method as opposed to a drop spindle technique which allows a full control over the exceedingly fine product required for her lace knitting.  Her learn to spindle kits sell for around $35.00 and contain a small light spindle, good quality wool roving, a braided wrist distaff and a free spinning lesson if you catch her at a festival.  She designs and drafts her own lace patterns and in addition to her shawls, produces felted hats and bowls, knitted vests, doilies, bookmarks, barrettes and hairclips embellished with silk ribbon embroidery.  Since she sells only her own product, she can tell you exactly whose fiber is in any shawl, vest, doily or barrette.

A sampling of Claire Walker’s alpaca knitted lace shawls

The Duraki sheep ranch specializes in Karakul, CVM and Lincoln Long Wool sheep, and sells registered breeding stock, covered fleeces and felting products including Marie’s delightful needle felted dolls, patterns and kits.   Their current flock of 14 animals supplies all of their fiber needs and enough products to sell animals and fiber. Included in the kits are a Navajo spinner, a western Santa Claus, and a variety of sheep and animal ornaments.  Marie also sells felting needles, felting boards and any and a variety of colored and textured fiber for needle or regular felting.

Marie Schmidt of Duraki Farms demonstrating one of her needle felted dolls

Molly and her daughter Paula specialize in “Wool filled bedding from Northern New Mexico.”  As native New Mexicans and descendants of an early New Mexico family, the goal of Molly and her family is to “assist in maintaining ancient family values and traditions of sustained agricultural economies”.

“PASTORES (shepherds) is an enterprise of Ganados del Valle, a community based, non-profit economic development corporation based in Los Ojos, New Mexico. Their mission is to demonstrate how land based rural development can develop sustainable economies by creating enterprises which add value to agricultural, cultural, and natural resources.” Molly bought the company seven years ago and has since been working on improving the product, encouraging local shepherds and trying to move towards getting certification for a certified organic product.

The Baca’s use wool grown locally in the mountains and valleys of New Mexico. The medium grade wool they purchase is used naturally and untreated throughout the entire process.  They are working on getting their organic wool certification but in the meantime they use only locally supplied product.  They train and hire local seamstresses to produce their wide range of comforters, mattress pads, sleeping pillows, body pillows and yoga pillows, all of which are individually hand made and hand tufted in an untreated pre-washed cotton muslin casing.

In addition to maintaining a family tradition and providing income and employment, Los Pastores is  expanding into custom sewing services for home décor and apparel.

The 2007 Taos Wool Festival ended on a high note for me…thanks to Pam and Doug Ramsey of La Plata Farms, Hesperus Co for my lovely cedar wood Navajo Spindle and Churro Roving which I won at the silent auction.