On that event-packed trip to Taos in October where I taught, went to the Taos Wools Festival, and saw the Horizons show in Santa Fe, I also had a couple hours to visit the Mountain and Valley Wool Association show at the fairgrounds in Santa Fe. This is the show that used to be Taos Wool Festival. It moved to Santa Fe some years ago now and I hadn’t been able to visit since their move.
MAVWA in Santa Fe is very different than the one that happened for decades in Taos, but I found it interesting to see the new Taos Wools festival and MAVWA back to back. I wrote about Taos Wools Festival HERE. That show is unique, full of artists and shepherds, churro sheep, food stalls, in a shady welcoming venue, and is quite non-traditional for a fiber festival. The MAVWA festival in Santa Fe is much larger with lots of traditional sorts of fiber booths and is held at the fairgrounds which tends to be a hot and dusty environment. Unfortunately I didn’t see any sheep though I suppose I could have missed them, but the alpaca and llamas were adorable. I also wasn’t able to go on the day of the fleece judging and if you follow me, you know that that is my favorite thing of a fiber show.
I enjoyed my time at MAVWA. I wish it hasn’t been so hot and dusty and I felt bad for the vendors that were outside in that huge dusty parking lot (why didn’t they bring the booths in closer so that you didn’t have to walk so far to get to them all spread out?!). But I found some treasures out there as well!
Rebecca and a fun fiber find: Northern Lights roving from The Fleece Factory of the Rockies. No, I haven’t spun it yet. But I COULD if I wanted to and that is all that matters this week.
I ran into some friends there and enjoyed catching up a bit and I had some time watching the alpaca and listening to the kids marvel at their presence.
The short video below gives you a tour of the festival. I regret that I didn’t take any photos or video of the demonstration room where the fiber guild Las Tejedoras was demonstrating many different fiber techniques and had a great exhibition of their work.
If you get the blog via email, click HERE to watch the video.