With strong roots in the Northeast, the Make it with Wool Competition continues to inspire innovative design with wool. This year, Haley Smith, a primary collaborator in the New York Regional Yarn Sourcebook and a junior in Fiber Science & Apparel Design at Cornell, won first place! What a great way to celebrate fiber arts,…
Tag: new york
New York Fiber Farm Map Launched
Thank you to everyone who has taken time to respond to the New York Fiber Farm map survey. I received 70+ responses, and developed an initial map that is shown below. I will be adding more farms as I get more responses. Please feel free to click through. The map includes farm names, types of…
New York Regional Yarn Sourcebook & Make it with Wool
Over the past few months, I worked with a team of designers, fiber scientists, and educators to develop a New York Regional Yarn Sourcebook to increase the visibility of diverse farms and stimulate greater interconnections between local farms and designers. The book features 17 sheep, alpaca, and goat farms that I’ve previously visited, and several…
Navajo-Churro Sheep & their Historical-Contemporary Significance Across the U.S.
Navajo Churro sheep are considered the first U.S. sheep, and have a deep-seated history. With origins dating back to the 16th century when they were first introduced by Spain to the southwestern US, to their cultural interconnection within the Navajo nation, and their near extinction due to governmental environmental concerns, Navajo Churro sheep populations are growing…
Yarn Love Challenge
Touching my fibers for most, if not all of the year, led me to realize how much I really love fibers! The Yarn Love Challenge on Instagram has opened my eyes to a world of fellow fiber enthusiasts who also love their fibers! I wasn’t able to keep up and post every day in February, but here are my…
Wool Dryer Balls
I recently experimented with making some wool dryer balls. A majority of the wool was wool that could have gone to waste, but that I used here. The interior shell is from meat breeds of sheep, and the exterior is extra wool that I had in my stash. It was fun to wrap the puffy wool…
New York Wool Socks!
My first One Year One Outfit pieces for 2016 are hand-knit socks! I’ve wanted to learn how to knit socks for several years, and am excited that I was finally able to take a sock knitting class using the Rose City Rollers pattern. I made several mistakes on my first set, but felt a lot more confident on my second set. It was…
Volunteering at the Laughing Goat Open Farm Day
This Saturday was an Open Farm day at the Laughing Goat Fiber Farm. It’s an annual event that welcomes the public to see and learn about fiber animals such as angora goats, alpacas, and sheep. It was a great pleasure to attend the Open Farm day as a volunteer with my twin sister, Nidia. When we first got…
New York Fiber Podcasts
I’m going to post podcasts that focus on the New York fiber community here. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting several of the interviewees throughout my time in New York, so I’m really excited to share these! I’ll update this post as I find more, or if anyone knows of any others let me know!!! WAMC Northeast Public…
Part IV: New York Fiberscape Dress Complete!
The New York Fiberscape Dress is finally complete! This was my first time making a garment entirely out of my hand-spun yarns, and it took a lot of determination and patience. I was motivated to work on it even though it was very labor intensive (over 800 yards of yarn plus hand-knitting!) because I was able…
Part II: New York Fiberscape Clothing & Textiles
An update about the NY Fiberscape Dress that I wrote about earlier in the summer. I knitted some swatches with stockinette and cable stitches to figure out the knitting gauge. I liked how they both turned out, so I decided to make the dress in stockinette stitches, and create the cables in a knitted cowl made of…
Exploring New York Fiber Farms @ Washington County Fiber Tour 2015
Visiting the sheep, alpaca, and goat fiber farms during the Washington County Fiber Tour in New York was the highlight of my year so far! Each farm had a unique narrative with fiber animals ranging from Merino sheep to Huacaya alpacas and Cashmere goats. This reflects the wide breadth of fibers available in New York. During the Fiber…
HELEN TREJO 