{"id":1837,"date":"2021-10-14T09:26:03","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T13:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montgomerymag.com\/?p=1837"},"modified":"2021-10-14T11:06:38","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T15:06:38","slug":"from-flocks-to-fiber-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montgomerymag.com\/from-flocks-to-fiber-art\/","title":{"rendered":"From Flocks to Fiber Art"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Dalis Davidson of Dancing Leaf Dyeworks. Photo by David Stuck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dalis Davidson\u2019s \u201cautumn bouquet\u201d channels the hues of the season in colors that range from chestnut to fir to something she\u2019s named \u201cchopping wood.\u201d But this bouquet doesn\u2019t feature the last flowers before frost. Rather, it\u2019s a collection of yarns Davidson hand dyes on her Barnesville farm. She sells them from her studio and online, along with artwork she calls \u201clambscapes,\u201d created in part with wool from the sheep she keeps.<\/p>\n

Davidson and other farmers in upper Montgomery County harvest wool and alpaca fleece. Some then transform the fiber into vibrantly dyed scarves, blankets and artwork that they sell through websites and events such as the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, the largest such event in the country celebrating everything wooly.<\/p>\n

Davidson\u2019s Dancing Leaf Dyeworks is located in a cottage on her 2-acre farm overlooking Sugarloaf Mountain and the rounded ridges of the Catoctin mountains. The shelves and walls of her studio overflow with yarn saturated with color, kits to make shawls and blankets, hand-knitted items and \u201cpaintings\u201d layered with various kinds of fiber.<\/p>\n

When Davidson first moved to the farm in northwestern Montgomery County several decades ago, she adopted a sheep from a neighbor moving away. After shearing her for the first time, Davidson wasn\u2019t sure what to do with the 14 pounds of wool.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily, there are a lot of female shepherds in the area, and they taught me to spin it. I learned to dye and knit and fell in love the whole process,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Today, she uses the wool from her two sheep, Delilah and Sunny Bunny, to create her lambscapes, which depict either mountains or beach scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are English long wool breeds with gorgeous long locks that I shear once a year,\u201d says Davidson. \u201cWool and bits of silk saris from India and yarn, that\u2019s my palette for my paintings.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Davidson\u2019s primary business is dyeing wool and other fibers sourced from all over the world that she purchases from a supplier in New York. This includes ultra-soft yak fiber, camel hair and Angora goat fleece, which becomes mohair.<\/p>\n

She uses vinegar-based acid dyes in powder form, eyeballing how much to add to stainless steel roasting pans purchased at kitchen goods stores.<\/p>\n

\u201cI use a lot of dye. I\u2019m known for deep, saturated colors. What many people don\u2019t know is that the deeper colors hide mistakes, whereas lighter ones are harder to create. But then sometimes mistakes turn into your most wonderful product,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Davidson says her yarns are \u201cmusic-infused\u201d because she always has something playing in the background as she works and \u201csun-kissed\u201d because she hangs them in the sun to dry.<\/p>\n

As she surveys her small parcel of farmland, which she shares with nine egg-laying chickens, two calico cats and a Labrador retriever, Davidson reflects on the need to preserve remaining county farms. Hers is in the county\u2019s Agricultural Reserve, a rural swath of rolling land along Montgomery\u2019s northern, western and eastern borders that covers nearly one-third of the county. Strict zoning rules protect farmland and agriculture, limiting development.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the pandemic, people have really used the Agriculture Reserve,\u201d Davidson says. \u201cPeople come out and say, \u2018Wow, I can\u2019t believe this is so close the city\u2019. We couldn\u2019t be here undisturbed unless it was held in preservation. That\u2019s one reason I\u2019ve been here so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

About four miles away from Davidson, Bev Thoms has also worked in fiber arts for decades. After a career as a nurse, she and her husband moved in 1974 from Rockville to a 60-acre farm and orchard in Dickerson. But half of their thousand peach trees soon died in a snowstorm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe branches couldn\u2019t hold up, and they just cracked in half, sounding like gunfire,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

They then boarded mares for a racing syndicate until it closed, moving on to raising sheep. Many in the first flocks, which were raised for meat, were killed by a neighbor\u2019s Siberian husky. Once the dog moved away, Thoms began with sheep anew, this time raising them for their fiber.<\/p>\n

This incarnation of the farm worked, although Thoms says, \u201cI had no idea what to do with all that wool. So I taught myself to spin it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus began Tiewyan Textiles, the name derived from a Gaelic word that means \u201chomestead of Williams,\u201d for her husband\u2019s family farming history in Wales. It is pronounced \u201ctee-wee-an.\u201d<\/p>\n

But before the clouds of wool can be transformed into yarn, she sends it out for processing into roving, essentially long ropes of cleaned wool that has been straightened from sheep\u2019s naturally curly coats.<\/p>\n

After dyeing the roving using a process like Davidson\u2019s and spinning it into yarn, Thoms initially wove it on a loom into clothing and blankets. But then she discovered felting about 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas weaving is very exacting and not so forgiving of mistakes, I found felting to be much more freeing, and I haven\u2019t gone back to weaving\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

So her loom sits folded and covered in a corner of her studio. Pieces of new felting works in shades of purple line several long tables instead.<\/p>\n

Thoms explains that wool can be transmuted into felt using a simple process. When dyed yarn meets soap and water, the small barbs at the edge of the fibers mesh together, forming sheets of felt once spread out and dried.<\/p>\n

Thoms takes this a step further with a craft called nuno felting, developed about 20 years ago in Australia. This technique takes wet wool and bonds it to a fabric with a loose weave, like silk gauze. She sells felted silk and merino wool scarves in tones of maroon and teal. In one project, she repurposed a patterned-printed black silk scarf, crisscrossing with off-white wool fibers. She also fashions blankets and placemats using wool from her sheep. Thoms leaves some of them the natural colors of her flock, including Wallace\u2019s brown, Sparkle\u2019s gray and Mary\u2019s white fleece.<\/p>\n

To help connect with artists in all media from upper Montgomery County as well as close by areas of Frederick, Howard and Carroll counties, Davidson started a group called Countryside Artisans more than 20 years ago. In addition to Tiewyan Textiles, Breezy Hill Farm in Woodbine is a member that also creates fiber arts. Breezy Hill\u2019s Heather Lysantri creates yarns, felted shawls and wraps, and woven scarves and table runners from the soft fleece of their alpacas, goats and sheep. She sells those as well as clothing and other works by other vendors specializing in alpaca fiber from her Little Boutique at Breezy Farm, which is attached to her studio.<\/p>\n

Lysantri\u2019s, Thoms\u2019 and Davidson\u2019s studios will be part of a 19-stop Countryside Artisans tour Oct. 8-10. The self-guided tour is free and will run again Dec. 3-5.<\/p>\n

And for those looking for fiber to spin and dye themselves, it can be found at several Montgomery County outlets, including the Spinning Loft in Silver Spring. It sells raw fleece and processed roving from more than 50 breeds from around the world on its website.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 10 years ago knitting really took off and became immensely popular,\u201d Davidson says. \u201cWith the pandemic and having people with time on their hands and wanting to get outside more, this is a great time to learn more about fiber arts and give them a try.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dalis Davidson\u2019s \u201cautumn bouquet\u201d channels the hues of the season in colors that range from chestnut to fir to something she\u2019s named \u201cchopping wood.\u201d But this bouquet doesn\u2019t feature the last flowers before frost. Rather, it\u2019s a collection of yarns Davidson hand dyes on her Barnesville farm. She sells them from her studio and online, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,57,61],"tags":[263,264,262,265],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Flocks to Fiber Art - Montgomery Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.montgomerymag.com\/from-flocks-to-fiber-art\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From Flocks to Fiber Art - Montgomery Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dalis Davidson\u2019s \u201cautumn bouquet\u201d channels the hues of the season in colors that range from chestnut to fir to something she\u2019s named \u201cchopping wood.\u201d But this bouquet doesn\u2019t feature the last flowers before frost. 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