More New Mexico

Thought I would add a few more pictures of the trip Michelle and I took to New Mexico.  These are balls of churro yarn that I bought at the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center.  These were dyed with natural dyes by a local woman, Glenna Dean, who is from Abiquiu.  She used madder root, brazilwood, black walnuts, cottonwood catkins and cota (aka Navajo tea).  These were spun very thin and are used in the native Colcha embroidery.  I plan on using them for stitching and bought a book on Colcha.

This is Michelle adding some fringe to a beautiful felted piece she was working at our B&B in Chimayo.  She included a little Lincoln lamb pelt in the piece.  

While I did some decorative stitching on one of my eco print shawls.

One of our first stops as we pulled into Taos was a beautiful fabric store that we love -- Common Thread.  This is hands down one of the best fabric stores ever.  We bought loads of beautiful silks, cashmere and silk shawls, buttons and ribbons.   

 After spending the night in Santa Fe, our last day took us on a smaller road down through the old silver mining town of Madrid.  It is now a community of artists and is very quaint. Lots of little shops to wander around in.

Since we were on our way to the airport in Albuquerque, and loathed the idea of eating airport food, we stopped at wonderful little Mama Lisa's Cafe, all good freshly homemade food. And, of course, my last opportunity to have New Mexico enchiladas.  

We ate our lunch out on the front patio and enjoyed the pleasant weather.  

As we pulled out of Madrid and started our journey to Albuquerque, a few raindrops began falling and within about 15 minutes we were in a torrential rainstorm, driving through the mountains until we descended into to Albuquerque.  No more exploring -- we went straight to the airport, which turned out to be a wise choice.

I am now in the process of washing the next fleece we bought at the Taos Wool Festival.  This is another CVM/Wensleydale cross and it is jet black.  More pictures when it's done.

Blogging Again!

Deep into autumn -- travels over and shows done -- I'm ready to tackle blogging again.  Started out fall with a very relaxing trip to Northern New Mexico with my friend, Michelle.  This was our second year attending the Taos Wool Festival. It's hard not to go because we have such a great time. And we actually reserved rooms for next year. We started out with two nights at the Casa Escondida B&B in Chimayo, a very quaint weaving community about halfway between Santa Fe and Taos. We explored around the area, visited the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center, ate good food, drank wine and spent some relaxing days knitting and stitching on our deck and the front porch.

The view from our deck was spectacular and we had perfect weather.

Can you imagine a more idyllic spot? Night time brought a million stars and even the Milky Way. 

The next stop on our adventure was The Old Taos Guesthouse in Taos, of course.  I have stayed here many times and Tim and Leslie, the owners, make this a more than special play to stay. One night, we even had a "camp fire" in the fire pit out back with many of the guests sitting around chatting and enjoying a glass of wine.

A nice cup of tea and knitting in the afternoon with a view out over Taos.

Onto the Taos Wool Festival for much shopping and visiting with people we have met along the way.  We bought fleeces at Black Pines Sheep booth.

We also bought fleeces from one of my favorite booths at the wool festival -- The Rocky Mountain Natural Colored Sheep Breeders -- three that we couldn't resist -- a cocoa brown, variegated gray and a black one.  We split those between us.  

The wool show is outside on the grass at Kit Carson Park in the heart of Taos.  

After four days in Taos and serious damage to our pocketbooks, we spent a night in Santa Fe -- much more commercial/touristy atmosphere than in the little town of Taos, but it was still fun and we had great New Mexican food.  Oh, I do miss those enchiladas.  

This week, I finally found time to start processing the fleeces I bought in Taos.  This one is a CVM/Wensleydale cross, and believe it or not, this fleece has all of these fabulous colors in it.  I can hardly wait to start spinning it so that I can knit with it.

Now that I actually posted something on my blog -- yes, I'm going to try to keep this up on a regular basis.  Fingers are crossed!