Photo Tour

Here are some photos from our latest journey, fresh from being developed. On the way up to Taos, We stopped by the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center. (click on the photos for a bigger image, this is an image rich post!)

We ate lunch at Rancho de Chimayo and I had yummy Tortilla soup and sopapillas with honey. Note the red chilis--this is the season when they are hanging everywhere on people's houses from special hooks to dry. Then we went to several weaving studios. I was especially inspired by Centinela Traditional Arts and the work of Irvin and Lisa Trujillo. This is a natural dye studio outside of their show room. I made sure to include the pots; this is the real thing! These were amazingly talented folks.

At the festival, there were absolute feats of skill and whimsy. First, this: Make of it what you will. I don't know whether they believed there were actual flying carpets to be had, but it sure did draw folks in to see their felted hat creations! (and in a place where you hear people talking about auras, past life regressions and energy flow in the shops near by, I think that's anyone's guess as to whether they had the flying carpets or not.)

Here's more of the fleecespun I mentioned yesterday. Wow.

If that wasn't enough, I got to stand next to this milk chocolate Australian Bond fleece (that's a breed of sheep, not a method of savings at a bank) and I touched it...and I didn't drool. Not once. I even went back to visit it later. It didn't remember me, and I wasn't insulted. It was that lovely.

At one point, I became a little dehydrated and felt overwhelmed by the festival activities. It could happen to anyone when they've drastically changed altitude and uhhh, rent districts. I took a little walk down the street and visited Weaving Southwest. I love this store. Half gallery, half yarn shop, with lots of weaving tools and the marvelous Rio Grande wheel. I've been there before and still just like visiting those nice folks. Maybe someday, I'll also take home one of those wheels?

This concludes the Taos part of our tour. Thanks for all your nice comments about how doing the research for this book works. It's mostly a lot of planning. Now that I've gotten some sleep at home, it all seems slightly more manageable. I'm even able to write more about it without sounding all gibberish-y.

Stay tuned. On Friday I will be hosting Donna Druchunas for her new book's blog tour!