If something needs doing around Tierra Wools, production manager Nathaniel Chavez will probably have a hand in doing it. From teaching weaving classes and dyeing yarn to stocking the showroom and doing maintenance, he does it all with care and enthusiasm. And as if that weren’t enough, Nathaniel is a talented Rio Grande-style weaver in his own right. (His pieces are for sale at at our store and on our website, www.handweavers.com) Nathaniel has been at Tierra Wools for over seven years and has been one of our weaving instructors for three. We sat down with him this month to talk with him about working, weaving, and the new Tierra Wools.
“[I learned to weave] pretty much a couple months after I started working here. It looked like an interesting thing to do… and [weaving] has been in my family for generations. I took a class with my mom [Sophia DeYapp] here at the shop - she’s the one who taught me. I like to weave a lot with the Rio Grande style - to me it’s more the interesting stuff. I like to weave rugs, runners, coasters. I’ve tried the scarves, but I wasn’t as interested in those!
“I started teaching [weaving at Tierra Wools] about three years ago. I teach beginning weaving, tapestry, weaving and some advanced tapestry weaving - pretty much all the weaving classes. I like watching people learn, what people produce, and how happy they are with what they produce by the end of class. Tapestry is fun but sometimes it’s nice to do simple things as well.”
Nathaniel and his mother, Sophia DeYapp, hand-dye many of the yarns available here at Tierra Wools, including the Churro blanket and rug weight yarns from Shepherd’s Lamb. “Dyeing is pretty hard work but it’s nice to produce colors and see what you get out of it. It’s fun to mix different colors….I’ll work with any of the yarns. They all weave up really well and dye really well but the Churro [yarn] is preferable for anything [to me].
Although he enjoys teaching weaving classes and dyeing yarn, Nathaniel says that the best part of his job is working on the displays in the showroom, “putting it together so it’s all nice for the customers to come in and see,” and he’s very excited about Tierra Wools’s new location in Chama, NM. “It’s something new for one, and the new location [in Chama] is a lot better than the old location because it’s a lot easier to find! I think [our customers will] like this new building - it has a homey feeling.” He wants to encourage anyone interested in weaving to sign up for a class this summer. “[Taking a weaving class is] a really good thing - you learn a whole new skill and you get to create something with your own two hands that you can be proud of. It doesn’t matter how much you know - we’ll teach you.”