I’m so excited to start sharing about some of the yarns I’ve been studying in my From Pasture to Needle: The Story of a Yarn series. The first yarn I decided to share is the Churro Yarn from Tierra Wools in Chama, New Mexico. Tierra Wools has a pretty great story. It began as a wool committee in the early 1980s. They proudly announce that they are grower/spinner/weaver owned on their ball bands. Much of their yarn and fiber comes from their own flock of Navajo-Churro and Rambouillet sheep or from other local farms that raise sheep in the high mountain pastures of the area near Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico. Tierra Wools was one of our stops on the Fiber Trails of the Upper Rio Grande trip and I mentioned it in this Interweave Knits Winter 2022 piece.

I was thrilled to bring a little of their Undyed Churro Yarn home with me from that trip. The moment I felt that yarn I decided it will make an excellent pair of mittens someday.

The story of the Churro sheep is an even deeper and more important story. Churro sheep came to the new world with Spanish settlers from the earliest days of colonizing. They are a hardy sheep breed well suited to extreme climates, disease resistant, and the mothers are fiercely protective of their lambs. All of this meant that the herds thrived in the New World. Before long Churro sheep were a main staple of farms and ranches in the southwest and incorporated into the daily life of the Navajo/Diné. The Churro are an endangered breed today not because of natural events. Instead, crossbreeding lessened the lines and there was a concerted effort by the US Army to decimate the Navajo/Diné flocks in 1863. Survivors were isolated and rare. I recently heard a Diné woman talk about that decimation…the image of murdered sheep piled and then burned in retribution is one that will stay with me.

The good news is that in the 1970s individuals and groups began to work together to restore the breed and to rebuild the flocks. Several flocks have developed. Ghost Ranch even has a flock that we were able to visit while on the Fiber Trail of the Upper Rio Grande. The sheep themselves are interesting too. Both rams and ewes can have horns and a double (or even triple) set of horns is not uncommon. Pictures of churro sheep are always interesting with shaggy fiber and the iconic horns. The fleece is two layered with an outer coat and an inner coat. Course fiber on the outer coat and a softer undercoat. The yarn is said to be remarkably durable and used in many woven rugs and blankets. I wouldn’t want to wear it as a cowl that brushed against the back of my neck. But prolonged tests of having it on my hands, wrists, and lower arms have not irritated my skin.

Tierra Wools offers this same Churro Yarn in a wide variety of colors and in two different weights – blanket weight and rug weight. The blanket weight I brought home worked up as Worsted weight in my gauge with 4.5 stitches per inch on US Size 7 needles. The rug weight looks and sounds closer to a Bulky yarn.

My skein is the Natural Grey-Brown shade shown in the middle of the screenshot here from the Tierra Wools website.

Stats of the Yarn:

• Name and from where: Blanket Weight Churro Yarn from Tierra Wools in Chama, New Mexico
• Fiber Content: 100% Certified Organic Churro Wool
• Weight/Yardage per Skein: 4 ounces, approximately 225 yards, worsted to semi-worsted weight
• Plys: Single ply
• Feel of the Yarn: In the ball, the yarn feels sturdy and a bit abrasive. I tested the yarn extensively on my hands and wrists with no irritation. I would not want this in a cowl that rubbed on the back of my neck.
• Knitting up: I knew from the moment I saw this yarn that it wanted to be mittens. So I did not try it with cables or texture. I swatched simple stockinette stitch with the exact US Size 7 dpn needles I plan to use to knit the mittens. On US Size 7 needles my swatch is 4.5 stitches per inch.
• Cables and Texture: I tried both cables and texture with this yarn. The texture gets lost in the blended shades of the fiber. I was pleasantly surprised by how well the yarn cabled. But the cables aren’t super easy to see.
• Care and Washing: No information on the ball band. Experience says to hand wash gently and lay flat to dry. I’ve written a blog post about the process I almost always follow for hand-washing here.
• After Washing/Blocking: I honestly didn’t expect much of a difference in feel between the unwashed swatch and the washed/blocked swatch. I was wrong. The washed swatch is softer and flatter than the unwashed sample.