I took a trip to New Mexico on the spur of the moment last weekend. It is unusual for me to decide to take a trip that involves 6-7 hours of driving each way at the last minute, but the stars aligned, and off we went. We had some friends who we wanted to see who were there visiting from Europe and the first weekend of October is Taos Wool Festival weekend. Yes, I know that this festival left Taos and was held in Santa Fe. I didn’t go to the renamed Mountain and Valley Wool Festival partly in disappointment at it leaving Taos, but also because I was tired of driving and didn’t want to go all the way to Santa Fe when Taos was so beautiful.
Connie Taylor talks about churro
Instead, I haunted Taos Wool’s pop-up shop and gallery show. One of the highlights of the weekend for me was hearing Connie Taylor speak about churro sheep, wool, and uses for their fleece. Connie is someone I met in 2005 when I was a student at Northern New Mexico Community College in the fibers department. At that time she had a big flock of churro sheep and was making 14 different colors of natural wool. (That fact still astounds me, but I saw it for myself and know it to be true.) I purchased her wool for my saltillo project. In Taos, she had her shade card with her, pictured below, along with a wide range of natural churro yarns.
Connie Taylor’s shade selection which she used to grow herself is in the laminated card to the right. Skeins are examples of naturally colored churro fleece.
Today she is still deeply part of wool production in Northern New Mexico. She had a wonderful display with her about all the uses of churro fleece. She started by talking about traditional colcha embroidery and how she has even produced and woven sabanilla for the stitchers along with threads for doing the embroidery.
Connie Taylor speaking about the uses of churro wool while showing a tapestry woven for her about her sheep. The yarns are all natural churro colors (they’re not dyed). I am so sorry I didn’t write down the name of the artist.
A closer view of that textile. It was finely and tightly woven with beautiful interlock joins.
Part of her presentation was showing us all the different characteristics of churro wool. It can be very soft and drape nicely especially if you’re using lamb’s fleece, or it can be very firm and stiff for rugs or other hearty textiles. The Kevin Aspaas wedge weave to the left below is an example of a very firmly woven churro textile. To the right is a lock of churro and some examples of colcha embroidery.
Connie had this beautiful wedge weave by Kevin Aspaas (IG is https://www.instagram.com/kevin.aspaas/)
Churro fleece. This fleece is dual coated.
The wide range of characteristics in churro fleece is part of what makes using this animal’s fiber so fascinating. Connie passed around examples of wool with a lot of kemp in it. Kemp is hair that won’t dye and in most textiles is undesired. Kemp is usually bred out of a flock and the fiber should be less than 2% kemp to be acceptable.
Example of churro fleece with a lot of kemp in it. The kemp is wirey and doesn’t take dye.
Connie’s talk was outside the Stables Gallery where the show and Taos Wools pop-up shop were.
It is important to note that many or most of the churro sheep where Connie now sources her yarn, roving, and fleeces comes from Navajo shepherds. Churro is raised by Diné weavers to make their textiles. If you’d like to hear a fantastic talk about this, Venancio Aragon was interviewed by the Handweavers Guild of America on October 4th for Textiles and Tea and you can watch the replay HERE on Facebook or eventually it will be on their YouTube channel. Venancio’s interview gives you a much better idea of the place of churro sheep and sheep in general in the lives of the Diné.
Taos Wools
Visiting the Taos Wools pop-up shop and gallery show at Stables Gallery was just one reason for going to Taos, but it was a great one! I haunted poor Joe, bringing various people over to the shop and petting all the yarn repeatedly. I bought some churro roving from him the first day produced by Connie Taylor and spun some of it that evening. I liked how it spun so much that I went back the next day and bought a bunch for my upcoming class to use at SOAR.
Holding churro roving and fleece from Connie Taylor, purchased from Taos Wools. Tapestry is by Connie Taylor: Death of Agriculture, 36 x 41 inches, Navajo-churro wool from her sheep.
I really like his Chica and Manta yarns (churro) for tapestry weaving. And I grabbed three skeins of his merino/bamboo yarn to knit a shawl with. Joe dyes all his yarns by hand. Taos Wools is one of very few places you can purchase hand-dyed churro yarns for weaving. The beauty of hand-dyeing plus the churro yarn just can’t be matched. The work involved in dyeing these yarns by hand is part of the beauty and it shows in the weaving. In the photos below you’ll see the weaving yarn in three sizes and the knitting yarn that snuck into my bag (ahem!).
Hand-dyed churro weaving yarns from Taos Wools
And if you need a little something to knit, Taos Wools provides that also. These skeins came home with me because I need a knitting project for my teaching trip this month. Or that was my excuse for purchasing more knitting yarn anyway!
Joe Barry owns Taos Wools. His gorgeous dye skills are displayed around us in this photo. Taos Wools pop-up show at the Stables Gallery, September 30 to October 2, 2022 in Taos.
Joe organized a show of tapestries by local artists which showcased churro yarn, not necessarily on purpose but because this is a very common material for New Mexico weavers to use.
Viewers examine Margaret Hermann’s double saddle blanket, Wild Geese Flying. 63 x 32 inches, handspun, hand-dyed churro wool in natural colors, indigo, and madder.
I loved this tapestry by Marcy Piersol. It was woven with a wool singles, probably churro. In the detail you can see the diagonal patterning in the surface that happens when you weave with a singles yarn one strand at a time. This thicker sort of singles creates a surface unlike yarns that are plied or bundled and you often see it in textiles from the southwestern US.
Marcy Piersol, Desert Mirage, 46.5 x 47 inches, wool.
Marcy Piersol, Desert Mirage detail
I did also leave the gallery with a fleece. Churro sheep don’t have big fleeces, but upon spreading it out, I think it is probably half a fleece. It weighs about 2 pounds. It is a gorgeous brown and I can’t wait to see what happens when I wash it. I’ve been studying different fleece washing techniques thanks to Jillian Moreno’s Patreon and I have a couple different things I want to try. My stand-by method has been the standard Dawn dish soap in a bucket but I’m going to take a different approach with this one. I’ll tell you more next week! This fleece is really clean and not terribly greasy so I think it is a good one to test some new fleece washing practices on! I will leave some unwashed to practice spinning in the grease as many people in New Mexico do.
I purchased 2 pounds of fleece from Connie Taylor.
Going home for awhile
And what would early October be without new snow? This is Wheeler peak from the Williams Lake trailhead in the Taos Ski Valley. It was raining as we hiked, but certainly snowing on the peak. I am sure the skiers were rejoicing.
The aspens were stunning in the ski valley. It was a foggy, rainy day so the photos aren’t great and mostly you can’t see the mountain tops, but the vibrant yellow-oranges were still wonderful.
Aspens in the Taos ski valley are reaching their peak color.
The cottonwoods in the bosques were all starting to turn. They’re brilliant against the New Mexico blue sky.
It was good to be home again if only for a few days.