About Us

How It All Began...

During my travels in Bolivia, I sat down with the women in the marketplace and learned to hand spin Alpaca on a drop spindle. When the time came to dye my handspun yarns, I felt they deserved more than a pinch of powder.

'The dye was cast' so to speak, and so began my great handspinning and plant dyeing adventure. Since then, to honor the craft of spinning, La Lana uses only the finest fibers. We still find natural plant dyes to be the most beautiful.

Our dyeing philosophy is to prepare the fibers and dyes to the best of our ability and let Serendipity take over. We are also big fans of Random Factors and Textures. Your yarns will reflect these interests and will be unique.













Paseo de La Lana/Virtual Tour
So Many people who can't make it to La Lana Wools wonder what the store looks like, so here you go. Click here for the Paseo de La Lana tour.

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Harvest

Wild harvesting is a very fun part of our dye year. That is, if you like that sort of thing - kind of like field hand labor. Like I said FUN!
From spring to fall we gather the plants native to our northern New Mexico mountains and valleys. After years of drought, with harvests going from sparse to sparser, this year was exuberantly bountiful. This was due to wondrous amounts of Blessed Rain - Give Thanks.
We thought to share some of these gifts of the earth with you.



Here's one of the places we gather - on a lovely day in late summer
Lupine

"Amongst the Lupines"
The lupine plants were outstanding this year, with spikes up to 12" long

Indian Paintbrush


Kota (Navajo Tea) is a nondescript plant, but once you've found it, you won't ever miss it again.
Factoid: Plants that give dye are also always healing plants. Kota is very valued amongst all native peoples of the Southwest as a blood purifier and strengthener. Also delicious served as an iced tea (and good hot too!)
As to color, this is a plant that gives and gives and gives... It starts with a very rich burnt sienna and 3-plus baths later gives a rich ochre beige
The approach of Maryalice after gathering Kota






Kota is easily overlooked, but rewards us with rich shades of sienna with endless after-baths of decreasing intensity.