It has been a glorious October here in New Mexico and out helping me photograph shawls and other items is my studio helper George. He is in charge of testing yarn for softness (Is it good to sleep on?) durability (Can I play with it and not get yelled at?) and sometimes color (Can I sit on it and not be noticed - i.e. Is it black and white?) He is actually a wonderful helper and a lot of company who is more than a bit put out this morning because I washed the red shawl in the photo below (the one on the triangle loom) and put it out to dry on the picnic table in the herb garden so it would be in the sun. This happens to be one of his favorite places also and he is not impressed with the big damp rag.

This red vest is made from hand dyed perle cotton warp (red and purple) with a red tencel weft. It is just like the rust and blue one posted earlier. The rust and blue won a first place ribbon in our local show and made me quite happy! But this week with the holidays coming on there was a need for Red on the looms. The Christmas Gallery starts just after Thanksgiving and in addition to my regular weaving on the floor looms I hope to make a triangle shawl a week until Christmas. Next year it would be wise to start stockpiling them in July. Even the ugly black one in the previous post has sold. Oops! I know we are never supposed to say something we made is ugly, but that one was awful! The wool was scratchy and the silk noils looked like dryer lint. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it is gone!

Don't forget Halloween this week -- stock up on chocolate and then forget where you hid it until all the kids are gone!

What fun would it be to go somewhere neat like the Taos Wool Festival and not come home with something new and different (if not necessarily needed). This is a picture of my new TriLoom. It is 7 feet across the top and is used to weave triangle shawls. When I was at the festival there were quite a few people selling the triangle shawls, but of course why buy a shawl when you can buy the loom? I found a nice older man who was working on a loom outside and asked him about it. He told me he made it and offered to sell me one. You can see from the picture that I took him up on it. He was very cute when I asked for the directions to put it together, he said "Oh
Honey, It only goes together one way!" And those were the only instructions it came with! He was right, it does only go together one way and I could not wait to get home and try it out. So here on the loom is the first shawl. The black yarn is wool and the white threads are silk - kind of a rough natural silk. I learned a lot just making this first shawl. For example: You had better like the color you are using because you will REALLY get tired of it otherwise. I think this got black yarn out of my system for a while. When it first comes off the loom the holes between the threads are pretty big (by my standards, I usually think in terms of 12epi).
But when it washed up the wool fulled (like magic I always think) and it came together nicely. This picture makes it look much smaller than it actually is, it still is a large shawl. I'm working on a brown one now and will post pictures of it soon.

There is a great group of people out there working on these TriLooms and they have formed a Yahoo group. Go to Yahoo Groups and put in TriLoom if you are interested in joining and knowing more. I was amazed at how inventive these people are with something that comes out basically the same size and shape every time. They make blankets, bags and even a beautiful jacket using this very loom. Their imaginations put me to shame!

You can never have too much yarn, or roving or wool in general! This past weekend was the Wool Festival in Taos, NM. There were about 60 tents with all kinds of tempting fiber treats, as you can see from the picture, I brought home as much as possible. The fiber critters were pretty interesting also and included goats, alpaca and churro sheep. The great part about going to a festival (in whatever your field is) is the chance to see what other people are doing. We are such a creative species and it does my heart good to see that we create beautiful things. I like that there are so many shades of purple in the world, it gives me hope!

I also visited the Taos Sunflower shop that is located in Arroyo Seco, NM just a few miles out of town from Taos. The town is set among a grove of Cottonwood trees that are vibrant yellow this time of year. The air was full of leaves and it was cool and inviting. This shop is worth the drive to Taos even when there is no Wool Festival going on.


It is filled with yarns and rovings and enticing magical bits of string that seem to whisper how wonderful all your weavings would be if only you had these sublime fibers at your fingertips. The ladies at Taos Sunflower http://www.taossunflower.com also hosted a workshop with Lexi Boeger, who wrote Handspun Revolution. http://www.pluckyfluff.com Their workshop space is huge and filled with light and someday I'm going back there to learn something fun with those delightful gals.

Happy Mabon to you all! This is the Autumnal Equinox and although it is still warm most days here in the southern part of New Mexico, the days are noticeably shorter. My favorite change in the seasons here is in the grasses. The wild grass along the roadside and trail have long seed heads that turn rust and brown as the grass leaf parts turn an old gold color. We don't have many trees and the ones we do have don't do much color dancing. Mesquite celebrates autumn quietly. In the park where I walk the Cottonwoods are a dull brown and leaves already carpet the ground, too much rain lately for a golden show. But Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year and I'll take brown leaves over green any day. It is time to celebrate the harvest and get out those great scarves and shawls to wear. Sometimes we are the colorful leaves in the gathering. Blessings to you all.

Folly is defined in the dictionary as any foolish act. There is something about knowingly committing a folly that is like a daring chance -- you know it may not turn out well but it is hard to turn your back on an idea once it forms. Recently a woman approached me with an idea for a project. She had some yarn she just could not bear to throw away but she had tried knitting with it and wasn't getting very far. She warned me the yarn was old but since it was 100% wool it seemed like it might be salvageable. I agreed to look at the yarn and see what might be done. When I went to pick it up I was floored to find that this yarn is older than I am (40+ years). The little yellow sticker declares that the yarn came from Kress - a store that has been out of business for many years, but it does have a pedigree 100% Italian Mohair. It even came with the nifty free pattern shown at left - don't you love her hair??? Who could resist a challenge to finally put that yarn to use? Knowing the mohair could only be used as the weft, I choose a Donegal tweed in cream and rust for the warp. The variegation in the mohair made an interesting square type pattern once it was woven. Of course being mohair I brushed it once it was finished and the whole thing is now very fuzzy. I will present it back to her as a shawl this week and one can only hope she still likes the yarn after all these years. The mohair and wool is so warm that we will need a blizzard before she can wear it -- but hey that is all part of folly, sometimes you just have to love what comes your way.

September is beginning with a flourish! The temps here in Eastern NM this morning were mid 50's and I wanted to dance around and celebrate the end of hot weather. Fall can't be far behind.

A celebration of autumn oranges with undertones of blue -- this short sleeved jacket vest has a handpainted warp of pearle cotton and a weft of cayenne tencel. The tencel gives the garment beautiful drape and the hand dyed warp moves the colors subtly from burnt orange to blue and bronze. The lapel has a twisted braided fringe with bronze faceted glass beads. This will be my entry into our local art show that takes place in October.

Have you ever fallen in love with color? Maybe that is the advantage of being a fiber artist, color is all around and in a variety of sensual textures. In July I fell in love with hand-dyeing cut velvet silk scarves. They are all over my house right now as I get ready to take new inventory to the gallery that represents my work. There is something a little Arabian Nights about having scarves draped over every available surface. I feel elegant beyond my usual weaver-spinner persona.

I have been reading the new book "Foolsgold" by Susan Wooldridge who also wrote "Poemcrazy." These books are about accessing the creativity that makes life as an artist hum along like gas in the tank. While I will probably never be much of a poet, I am always interested in how other creative people tap into what they do, where their passion comes from. Surely being an artist is all about passion. These two books are lifesavers and have opened doors for me that seemed firmly closed. They gave me the desire to blog again and write on every available surface - all the ones not currently covered in silk scarves! Thank goodness for authors like Wooldridge and if you get the chance to read these please do, and then write and tell me what you think. Write and tell Susan too, I think she likes to hear from us.