Spinning on a Navajo Spindle with Liane Brown

This one day workshop taught participants how to prepare and spin raw wool into warm, delightful and beautiful skeins of yarn, ready to knit or weave. There was an emphasis on the history and use of Navajo-Churro wool, which was brought here by Spanish conquistadors in 1598. Students started by carding the wool with hand cards, then carefully learned how to twist and turn the spindle to make the yarn longer, and longer.

Liane Brown, the owner of Santa Fe Buffalo Designs, is a native Santa Fean who turned her life-long love of spinning fiber and weaving into creatively designed products that are softer than imagined. Her technique employs a special blend of undyed Navajo-Churro sheep’s wool, alpaca wool, and buffalo hair, which adds an exotic fiber into the wool and creates a stronger yarn product. Other exotic fibers she spins are wolf hair and coyote hair.