We spent the last full day of our Fiber Trails of the Upper Rio Grande trip in Taos for the Taos Wool Festival.
We arrived around 11 am and found the Downtown Taos Historic District and Kit Carson Park just a quarter-mile down the road already bustling with fiber lovers from all over. The plan was for Fiber Trails to shuttle all of us from the campground to the festival and back. But it made more sense for me to leave from Taos for my trip home and I followed the Fiber Trails shuttle bus to the festival.
I did not find parking in Kit Carson Park where the festival is held but found a close spot in a nearby city lot between a car from Illinois and a car from New Mexico. I asked a handful of very friendly people as they passed by if they knew if I needed to pay for the parking spot. The consensus was that parking was free on the weekends. I left my car and hoped for the best (I did not get a ticket so that particular lot was indeed free for the day but it would definitely change from lot to lot. As always, you should trust your judgement, ask the locals and err on the side of caution).
This is one of the first wool festivals I’ve ever attended. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Seeing all of the tents set up along the edges and in the center of the park was beautiful! The list of about 60 or so fiber vendors on the festival website seemed impressive and seeing it in person felt impressive too. Kit Carson park is large enough that the fiber vendors, event stages, information booth and the handful of food/drink vendors all fit nicely with plenty of open space to wander and observe. Taos seemed to be a very dog-friendly area too with many dogs on leashes. In addition to all the fiber goodness, I saw live music, a place to buy lamb to eat, a coffee vendor and a fancy root (willow, birch, etc) beer vendor. I somehow missed the sheep sheering demonstration and the Navajo Churro Sheep Corral.
I was careful to budget yarn money for this trip (starting months ahead of time so I could be sure to support local vendors). That means I came home with some pretty great new-to-me yarns and I’m thrilled to share what I found here!
I bought from 5 vendors (6 if we count the spinning fiber I picked up for a friend). Mostly I bought one skein here and there to spread the support.
1 skein of a beautiful grey-blue single ply wool (335 yards of what looks like it will work up as heavy fingering or light sport). This was indigo overdyed on a dark grey yarn by the Woolly Lizard out of Cortez, Colorado. It is beautiful but I am certain that it is not easily reproducible.
1 skein from Dyers Wool in their Heritage Tunis gradient sock yarn (100 grams, 3.5 oz = 350 yards). The band says 6.5 spi. 75% Tunis Wool and 25% Nylon in beautiful greens from light to darker. A sample I saw knitted up had wonderful dark, dark speckles at one end and I loved it.
1 skein from Vortex Yarns (the Taos yarn shop just off the park where the wool festival is held – I bought it from their festival tent instead of walking across the street to visit their shop). 434 yards of fingering weight. 60% superwash wool, 30% bamboo, 10% nylon. Hand dyed in Taos by the yarn shop owner in the color way Black Currant. It very much looks like Ghost Ranch colors to me with the shades of red, rust and yellow.
1 monster-sized skein from Cat Mountain Fiber Arts in their Cozy in the color Carmine (wine/burgundy). 250 g = 550 yds. 100% Blue Face Leicester Wool. Ball band suggests needle size 3 to 6. So I’m thinking it will work up somewhere between Sport and DK.
And then my BIG purchase. 5 skeins from Elsa Wool (100% cormo wool, grown in Montana, spun in Wisconsin), Sport weight, 2-ply. Each skein is 4 oz, 350 yards in a Lot number instead of a color name. Lovely warm brown. Beautiful, sturdy and very much going to be a sweater for me (plus a sweater design).
The puppy approves.
Then I needed help from a nice lady in the Sheep Feathers Farm booth to pick out spinning fiber for a friend. I showed her my friend’s email and she helped me pick out fiber from a sheep named Alfie. On the fiber tag the breed says wensleydale/cvm and the color says oatmeal. I know next to nothing about spinning fiber, so I hope the nice lady and I did all right.
There were lots of choices and I’m certain I didn’t even see them all. Many of the vendors sold already made items like rugs or sweaters. Even the Elsa Wool where I bought my sweater’s worth of yarn had their tent evenly split between yarn and what looked to be commercially produced clothing items made from their yarns.
