I’ve been waiting for Tierra Wools to reopen. I have found myself driving between my new home in southwestern Colorado and Taos or Santa Fe, NM fairly often and this route takes me right past Tierra Wools. They close for the winter so every time I’d go by and see the gate across the driveway I’d think, April 1. April 1. April 1.
Tierra Wools in Chama, NM
April 1 came and I found myself driving past on April 4th. And of course I stopped. For various reasons I hadn’t been to this place since it was in Los Ojos and it has experienced a lot of growth since then. I strongly suspect a lot of that can be attributed to the work of Molly Manzanares and her daughter Lara.
When you walk into the shop, this is what you see. Shepherd’s Lamb, the Manzanares’ farm, raises Churro and Rambouillet sheep and they mill and dye the yarn and sell it for tapestry weaving. The color selection is huge and so beautiful to see on the wall.
Tierra Wools. Shepherd’s Lamb churro in so many colors.
The shop is quite large and there are yarn and textiles everywhere. You could spend a healthy amount of time just examining the textiles on the walls and in stacks in the gallery (and choosing one to take home!).
At the front of the shop, so many gorgeous textiles!
Tierra Wools, yarn and textiles
Here is just one example of hundreds of mostly Rio Grande Hispanic-style tapestries on display. This one caught my eye and it is no surprise that it is by Molly Manzanares herself. It is 56.5 x 85 inches.
Tapestry by Molly Manzanares, 56.5 x 85 inches.
Tapestry by Molly Manzanares, detail. Contact Tierra Wools to purchase this or any of the other gorgeous textiles for sale there.
Tierra Wools is a fun place to explore. There are fiber tools, yarn, and spinning fiber tucked into all corners of this large building. See that spinning fiber bottom left in the photo below? Some of that came home with me. Does my fleece attic need any more fiber? Nope. Will I dye and spin this and go back for more? Probably so.
The Art of Tapestry Weaving and the rio grande walking loom
I think every author probably does this… searches for their book on the shelves of places that sell books. I was so happy to find my book at Tierra Wools. And when I asked Molly’s sister Toni who was helping me in the shop if I could sign their books, she ran and got her copy for me to sign as well. Nothing like making an author feel loved.
Rebecca and her book at Tierra Wools
Lara Manzanares was exceptionally helpful to me when I was writing this book. I was looking for a clean picture of a Rio Grande walking loom being used. I used to have one of these wonderful looms but didn’t have any decent photos. Lara provided an excellent example and as a bonus, she is the weaver working on the loom.
Page 28 of The Art of Tapestry Weaving features a Rio Grande walking loom with Lara Manzanares weaving on it.
Tierra Wools has a large classroom full of walking looms as well as a few other looms in another area of the shop. These looms and tradition of weaving are so much fun to work on. When I first started learning tapestry weaving, I was a student of this tradition at Northern New Mexico Community College in the Fibers program under Karen Martinez. The program at the El Rito campus was shut down sometime after I was there in 2005. I’ve been told recently that the program is running again at the Española campus. You can also take classes at places like Tierra Wools (Chama), Centinela Traditional Arts (Chimayo), and Taos Wools (Taos). I recommend taking classes from all of these talented people.
Tierra Wools, looms in the smaller back room. Go and take a class to experience their large classroom for yourself!
Hiking on the way to Santa Fe: CDT
After leaving Tierra Wools, I headed south to Santa Fe. I stopped at the spot the Continental Divide Trail crosses the road for a little walk which was cut short by the high water level in the stream and my lack of appropriate wading footwear. Soon enough this little creek will be small enough to hop across or perhaps even dry up completely. By then the CDT thru-hikers will have passed by and filtered this to drink on their way to Chama.
Rebecca takes a tiny hike on the CDT just south of Chama and Tierra Wools
Martinez Canyon water crossing in April
These are not the shoes or the pants for wading through water that was probably just calf-height. Next time.
I hope you have a chance to visit northern New Mexico and some of the textiles made there. Perhaps I’ll see you there one of these days!
I was in Santa Fe to visit some friends from my therapy days. This is how many bags of chips four women pack for three days… ten. It was ten bags. We made a pretty good dent in them.