I wanted to announce tomorrow is the last day to sign for my traditional Navajo weaving class for Ocotober.  See the blog info further down if you are interested.  It’s $650 for 5 days and students are responsible for their own hotel and food.  If you are interested in siging up, please go to click on the paypal link on my blog below that discusses making  down payment.  My fees will increase for next year as I gain more experience working with students. 

Please contact me if you have any questions.

I have posted advertisements for traditional Navajo weaving classes and Native art shopping experiences.  I have received few inquiries for these experiences to learn about Navajo culture and contemporary Navajo life. My traditional Navajo weaving class will have few shortcuts, and we will do our warping and weaving while sitting on the floor as if we were weaving 200 years ago.   My Native art shopping experiences will give you the opportunity to see in person the authentic way Navajo people live without all preconceived notions of how Navajos and other Native people live on the reservation.  No, Oprah didn’t get it when she visited Window Rock, the Navajo Nation capital.  Yes, the pow-wow culture is NOT a Navajo tradition.  Yes, Navajos do have TVs, computers, and internet. No, Navajos don’t live in teepees, never did.  Yes, we still wear feathers, but not everyday. See how much you learned already? 

I will take you to Santa Fe to meet weaver, artist, and author Noel Bennett.  Now how many weaving instructors or shopping guides can offer you to meet Noel Bennett and hear one of her stories of living on the Navajo Reservation in the 1960s?  For those of you who don’t know about Noel’s books, they include Working with the Wool, Halo of the Sun, Bighorse the Warrior (edited only), and Weaver’s Pathway.  Noel is my dear friend. These experiences will change your life, and how you think about yourself and others around you, but you have to be open to these experiences.

I will leave the opportunities open for a couple more weeks and then I may cancel my personally guided offerings.  I appreciate your time and attention in reading my blog updates.  Time is of the essence so I do need to move on to other projects and endeavors.  Thanks!  Hope to see you soon in my traditional Navajo weaving class or on a trip to Hubbell Trading Post or to Cameron Trading Post.  Please contact me if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments.

Morris 

One of my goals on my site is promote Navajo weaving and Navajo made products.  I want to make Navajo handspun yarns, Navajo made weaving tools and hand-dyed yarn available to fiber artists who have an interest in Navajo weaving.

A few years ago I “hand-dyed” dozens of skeins of Navajo Churro wool by fermenting them in a prickly pear dye bath.  I purchased my yarn from Connie Taylor when she was still living in Ojo Caliente, NM. Connie now lives in southern Colorado and she can be reached through her website, http://www.navajo-churrosheep.com/member-webpages/CerroMojino.html.  I’ve known Connie for years and I really like she raises Navajo Churro sheep while still being involved in Dine’ be’ Iina’ (Navajo Lifeway) organization, http://www.navajolifeway.org/.

Here’s how I fermented the skeins of yarn.  I washed my skeins in very warm water to wash out the oils–lanolin and spinning oils–that were still in the yarn.  I then rinsed and soaked the yarn while I sliced up the prickly pear fruits.  I filled my containers with water and added the sliced prickly pears.  I mixed the prickly pear bath differently each time with the wool depending on what I wanted to achieve.  I wanted to make some yarns have more varigated, streaks of color while other were very uniform.  In the end, it was up to Mother Nature’s gifts of prickly pear, water and the fermentation process that produced the following yarns I have available for sale. 

I did rinse and wash the wool after the fermentation so there’s no funky smell in the yarn.  I aired out the yarn and rinsed the yarn.  Word of caution about these colors.  Although the prickly pear fermented dye bath is self-mordanting, the colorfastness is not absolute as with all vegetally dyed yarn.  As a hand-dyer, I am very conscious that I wash my yarn so the excess dye does not “bleed” into the neighboring colors when used in a weaving or knitting project.   In short, please keep in mind the pink color may fade with exposure to different types of light and washing.

 Please contact me if you have any questions. (By the way I usually do not offer my hand-dyed yarn for sale to other fiber artists).  I did the dirty, smelly work for you so you can now enjoy this beautiful naturally dyed pink Navajo Churro wool yarn!

	Prickly Pear yarn #1      Weight: 4oz Navajo Churro wool yarn, single ply This yarn has some light to dark pink streaks in it.  Overall subtle streaky appearance. Quantity: 1 Price: $32 plus $8 shipping in the US
	Prickly Pear yarn #2   Weight: 4oz Navajo Churro wool yarn, single ply This yarn has some light to dark pink streaks in it. Overall subtle streaky appearance.  Quantity: 1 Price: $32 plus $8 shipping in the US
	Prickly Pear yarn #3  Weight: 4oz Navajo Churro wool yarn, single ply This yarn is uniform in color withs some peach to orange highlights. Soft pink color. Quantity: 1 Price: $32 plus $8 shipping in the US
	Prickly Pear yarn #4   Weight: 4oz Navajo Churro wool yarn, single ply This yarn is the darkest pink of the yarns featured here. The actual color is darker than yarn #3 above.  There are some dark pink streaks in this yarn.  Quantity: 1 Price: $32 plus $8 shipping in the US