Wednesday, August 3, 2005

NEW MEXICO FIBER RESOURCES

I'm really behind this week but I've been meaning to post something for those of you considering coming to New Mexico the first weekend in October for the Taos Wool Festival. I hope some of my ideas entice you to come - we'll plan some sort of get-together at the festival.

Taos Wool Festival is held in Kit Carson Park in the center of town. It isn't a huge festival but there's a lot for fiber people including animals, sheep shearing contests, fashion shows, etc. They say there will be 68 booths this year which is larger than usual. I highly recommend Elsa Sheep & Wool for my favorite Cormo yarn and La Plata Farms for great deals on spinning fibers. There's also a booth that sells great fiber books and old magazines and Fire Ant Ranch has some fun learn-to kits (learn to spin on a spindle, learn to needle felt, etc.). The best time to check out the wool festival is early in the morning as it get pretty crowded in the afternoon.

In Taos the Apple Tree is a good restaurant for veggie burgers and Mexican stuff. They have an outdoor patio and the wait isn't usually too long. Doc Martin's hotel has some absolutely incredible strawberry French toast for breakfast. There is a surprisingly good Chinese restaurant with great service right on the plaza. There is a little shopping center with a great bookstore, Moby Dickens (check out their great cookbook selection), and a really neat French cookware store with lots of copper, Monet's Kitchen. Taos is famous for their own ice cream, Taos Cow, that you really need to try as well.

Also in that shopping center is the Yarn Shop which is my personal favorite yarn store in Taos. Lots of sock yarn and friendly service. There is also Taos Sunflower in Arroyo Seco on the way to the ski area in a cute building with lots of higher-end yarns. And you all probably know about La Lana Wools and Weaving Southwest (home of the wonderful Rio Grande Spinning Wheel along with a cool walking wheel) which are right across the street from the wool festival.

Visitors to Taos definitely need to check out the Taos Valley Wool Mill where you can see them turning fleeces into yarns. They give tours for festival attendees and you can find out what time they are at La Lana Wools. It is also a really pretty drive to the mill. Up at the ski area there is a neat little store that sells colorful Peruvian handknits called Andean Software. I have to get back there this year.

One really neat thing to do while in Taos is to tour the Greater World Earthship Community. It is a reclaimed gravel pit north of town that now holds earthships. Earthships are sustainable, passive solar, off-the-grid houses designed by famed NM architect Michael Reynolds. There is an earthship right off the highway you can tour and there are occasionally rentals available.

If you have a car, it is a simple drive to Los Ojos through the beautiful Chama Valley to Tierra Wools. This is a spinning and weaving cooperative in what seems like an old general store with a wood stove and weavers working everywhere. They sell lots of weaving yarns and other gift items.

Another idea is a trip to Mora to Victory Ranch where there is a gift shop and guided tours to meet all the alpacas. I hope to get there some day.

Don't forget a trip to wonderful Santa Fe. First you can check out the Espanola Fiber Arts Center (I've never made it there) and then you can go to Santa Fe to Needle's Eye yarn store (lots of Dale of Norway and an incredible selection of needlepoint supplies) and the Santa Fe School of Weaving (also a knitting/yarn store called Miriam's Well) near the Cross of the Martyrs. There is an incredible textile collection (check out the ancient indigo-dyed Japanese firefighter's uniforms) in the Neutrogena Collection at the International Museum of Folk Art along with several fiber arts galleries on Canyon Road. We enjoyed Thirteen Moons gallery where we saw baskets made out of fish and quilts made out of paper.

Albuquerque (about a 3 hour drive from Taos) has the Fiesta Yarns outlet in Rio Rancho and Village Wools (great place to buy Navajo Churro fiber) and Fibernations yarn store in the East Mountains.