By Malia Chang, Apparel Merchandising & Management Undergraduate student Towards the end of October, I had the opportunity as a Student Research Assistant to attend the International Textile and Apparel Association 2022 Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado. I was able to attend several sessions that were offered at the conference. Throughout the conference, many gathered…
Tag: sheep
Women in Sheep & Wool Digital Archives
Women play a significant role in today’s wool scene. Many of the farmers I interviewed and surveyed during my PhD research were women. This led me to wonder what role women played historically on farms. For my PhD research, I looked at “The Wool Grower” digital archives during 1830 to 1855. There were little to…
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…
Building a New York Fiber Farm Map & Database
I began to look for New York fiber farms online in 2013. In 5 years, my database has grown to over 470 sheep, alpaca, and goat farms, and I am sure there are many more. I looked at several mapping platforms to visually communicate my fiber farm research including ArcGIS, QGIS BatchGeo, CartoDB, Google Earth,…
Hidden Alpaca & Sorting Fibers
Now that the snow is gone and it is shearing season, I started to sort fibers as part of my fiber apprenticeship in a path to become a Master fiber sorter, grader, and classer. I have collaborated with Carol Haff of Hidden Alpaca Farm to sort and grade her alpaca’s fleeces. Her farm is in…
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…
Inspiration from Fibershed Wool & Fine Fiber Book
I recently borrowed the Fibershed Wool & Fine Fiber Book that presents a variety of fibers available in Northern California. There are several types of wool that highlight the unique sheep breeds in the region, such as California Red, Santa Cruz, Navajo-Churro, Merino, and Ouessant sheep to name a few. There are also suri and huacaya alpacas, angora goats,…
Fiber Concoction
I started to knit my mohair, wool, and curly horse hair yarn that I spun last summer during the Tour de Fleece. I’ve been waiting to use it, and thought it would be perfect as textile art that I can appreciate forever! I am very intrigued by the honeycomb design and made it a core part…
Wool Day in Ithaca!
Today I was happy to celebrate Wool Day in Ithaca! There was a small festival where I got wool, mohair, and alpaca roving from the Laughing Goat Fiber Farm, thanks Lisa! I plan to use the fibers in an upcoming natural dye student exhibit and show fibers from animals raised on the same farmland and in Ithaca….
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…
Part I: New York Fiberscape Dress
Over the past few weeks I have been hand-spinning with fibers collected during the Washington County Fiber Tour, and fibers in my stash. In total I spun 449 yards of yarn. My goal is to create enough hand-spun yarns for a New York Fiberscape Dress. The Dress is meant to draw attention to the variety of natural…
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…
Little York Fiber Festival in NY!
It was great to visit the Little York Fiber Festival at the Cortland Repertory Theatre today. There were a variety of artisan, fiber farm, and mill entrepreneur vendors with a diversity of fibers from sheep, alpacas, llamas, and angora rabbits. Special thanks to Linda Schwab for introducing me to Margaret Flowers, fiber artisan and fiber farmer at Trinity Farm with…
Hand Spun Wool
These are photos of my ongoing hand-spinning work. I did most of the spinning on my drop spindle throughout the summer. It is my first 6-ply wool yarn and I am excited about its texture, and its soft, airy feel. My anticipated project is a cowl scarf to get ready for Winter 2015 in Ithaca….
Fiber Artisanry with Local Fibers
I’m excited to show one of the first knit and crochet accessories I made from 100% hand spun yarns. I previously wrote about the NY fleece origins here and about my process of learning to spin here. I’m glad I had the opportunity to learn how to make my own yarns at Knitting Etc. because I can expand my creativity…
HELEN TREJO 