Caroline Hockenberry will be teaching how to knit, or will give you help with a project next to our stand at the Falls Church farmers market on Saturday May 25th and again on June 22nd.

Here are the details:
Two hour session is from 9:30am to 11:30am
Location is next to the Solitude Wool stand, on the grass on the Park Avenue end of the market.
you can bring your own wool yarn and appropriate size of needles, or we will have kits with yarn and needles for sale.
do bring a chair if you can.
cost is $30.00. class limited to 8 students. reserve your spot (email Gretchen at f-fsolitude@mindspring), or drop in is great if class isn’t filled.

It is so pleasant sitting under the shade of the big trees along Park Avenue on the grass

Congratulations to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival! 40 years! Phew. I think this festival has been really important for sheep, saving spinning from extinction, fiber arts. I know it was huge for me when having a farm and growing fiber was just a fantasy.

Hope you are able to come to the festival and celebrate everything sheep and wool!

This year we have a new location: in the Main Exhibition Hall, booth B-17 which is along the west wall. We would love to see you and show off our yarn and roving.

Save the date(s)!

In reverse order…

We are planning our next Solitude Wool Field Day: Romney. On Saturday June 15th we will be at WeatherLea Farm & Vineyard in Lovettsville, Virginia. WeatherLea is a beautiful farm with a great big bank barn for events. More info soon.

Hope you have blocked out May 5th and 6th for the 40th Anniversary of the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. This is the grandmother of all sheep and wool festivals. I wonder if anyone has written the history of how it got started? I know it was Maryland Shepherds. I hope they are all beyond proud of themselves, because it is an extraordinary event. I don’t really know this, but it feels like this festival was the start of bringing back wool handcrafts and small flock shepherding from the brink of extinction. I guess I should try and find out…anyway, Solitude Wool will be there in a new location this year: D17 of the Main Exhibition Hall. Even if you are far, far away. Consider coming. It’s worth it.

On Sunday April 7th, we are going to open for visitors and sales at our corner of the (Endless Summer Harvest) warehouse in Purcellville, Virginia. Hours will be from noon to 4 pm. More information soon (interested in a spinner’s circle?).

And last and closest: On Saturday March 23rd, we will be one of the farms participating in the Uniquities Fiber Farmer’s Market. Hours are from 1 to 5 pm and it will again be at the Vienna, Virginia Community Center.

Greetings!

A brief announcement about Farmers Markets:

We will be back to the Falls Church Farmers Market this Saturday, January 5th. The market is starting the winter hours: opening at 9:00 am (and boy do I appreciate it!). We will probably be in a new place at the market and I won’t know where until directed on Saturday morning. Look for our polka dot tent top…or just racks of yarn. We will be there!

Then, Sunday, January 6th we will be at the Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market. This market also has winter hours: 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. So civilized! We will be in our regular spot on the street.

And then for the rest of the winter our plan is to be at both these markets every other weekend:

Jan: 19th & 20th

Mar: 2 & 3 16 & 17 30 & 31

And, as you now know if you are a farmers market customer…we bow out if it is raining…or if the roads are icy. So, if we have to miss a weekend, we might just pop in the following one to make up. I will always (at least if I am able, power outage might prevent it) put a notice on our web site if I cannot make it when scheduled.

There are bunches of other things going on:

• getting it together to put new yarn on cones for weaving up on the web site…we are late! sorry…

• will be adding the Targhee 2 yarn to the web site very soon too

• also getting information/labels ready to introduce another new yarn: Montadale baby. Really nice.

• planning our next Solitude Wool Field Day: Tunis. Date and time to be determined

I’ll announce them all as soon as we pull it together.

Thank you,

Happy New Year!!!!

Good Morning!

Okay, I’m trying to set the tone for my day: efficient but thorough and maintaining good cheer. Here goes:

1. You all were so appreciative of Solitude Wool at the Leesburg HomeGrown markets the last two Saturdays that Sue wants to come back this Saturday too.

2. I will be at the Falls Church Farmers market on Saturday (looks solid) and the Dupont FreshFarm market on Sunday. Once again, the weather on Sunday sounds wet, but I hope it comes in late. If we can’t come to any market, look for a message on the home page by 6:00am that day. And if we are not able to come, free shipping on all web site or phone orders for that day… no matter where you happen to live (as long as it’s in the lower 48 states).

3. Special things coming to market: three new small felted bucket bags by Sue Burke (two shown above). Small bags $160 plus we have one medium one at $240 and two large bags at $280. Sue will have some at Leesburg and I will have the others, or you can snap them up by phone/email ahead of the market if you can’t make it (540-554-2312, f-fsolitude@mindspring.com).

4. Clara Parkes, author of The Knitter’s Review, The Book of Yarn and The Book of Wool, is having a yarn making adventure starting in January. I had my nose just slightly out of joint when I read about this, Now Clara, who has been a great supporter of Solitude Wool, is a competitor? But I talked myself back around, of course we want more people making yarn from good farm sources! This adventure centers around wool from one farm in New York. I got to meet the shepherd two years ago, and although I haven’t been to the farm, I think he is pretty amazing. So, I signed up to follow Clara transform this “Great Bale” into yarn. You can follow too by signing up for a members-only protected section of her web site. Sue and I live this adventure, and I think it ought to be pretty interesting to knitters/yarn users to see what it takes to make small batch artisan yarns in the US.

Okay, that’s it for now…off for more cheerful efficiency (I think I can!)

Gretchen

Who’s smarter?

I honestly wonder about this often.

It has been an unexpected but most welcome return to October weather these last few days. I have been going as fast as I can to take advantage of it. Dyeing yarn, working on several different yarns

including our new baby yarn…rinsing yarn, drying yarn, dyeing more yarn etc etc

and, doing some good farm things: trimming hooves (boy is that a good thing to have done before the finger freezing time arrives), filling feed bins, cleaning out the milking parlour (what a terrible mess it was!). Joan worked in the garden, raked leaves, mowed (!) and harvested lots of kale, lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, beets. All the beds under cover got uncovered and watered and are now covered up again.

And we didn’t even get to several things we wanted to, changing light bulbs at the barn and outside the house, hanging the double suet feeder and figuring out how to keep the racoon from stealing it.

So the sun is setting and I head out with camera and it makes me look. The animals are all cooled out, just enjoying this brief warm up. I’m pooped, and now the warm up is over. I didn’t miss it, but somehow I don’t think I got as much out of it as they did.

Back to all three markets again this weekend

Sue and Bill will be heading to Leesburg Farmers Market this Saturday again and I will be doing the Falls Church Farmers Market on Saturday and the Dupont Circle Farmers Market on Sunday (if it doesn’t rain).

This week will be just the opposite of last week:

Leesburg customers will get to see Karakul, Tunis, Targhee 3-ply, Border Leicester aran weight, Border Leicester sport weight, Corriedale bulky, Tunis/alpaca plus the new preview yarns and the alpaca/Merino lace.

Falls Church and Dupont get Romney, Shropshire double twist, Corriedale/Corrie cross, Targhee 2-ply, Border Leicester bulky, Icelandic, Suffolk/Dorset sock plus the new preview yarns and the alpaca/Merino lace.

Hope you all got to enjoy some of the weather half as much as the farm animals did!

Gretchen

We plan to come to these Farmers markets. However, if it should be raining, we will probably not come. It is always difficult to decide what to do based on the weather forecasts (especially on Sunday mornings when I think the forecast hasn’t been updated) so my apologies in advance if we make a wrong decision.

Falls Church Farmers market: Saturdays 8-noon, every weekend until Christmas

Dupont Circle Farmers market: Sundays 8:30 to 1pm, every weekend until Christmas

Leesburg Farmers Market: Saturday 8-noon, Dec 1st and 8th unless we get rained out and then we will add a Saturday

Happy Thanksgiving everyone

Personally, I’m going nuts trying to put the house/life back together before Thursday (and no doubt it will be good enough, deadlines are oh so effective). In spite of the fact that I’m not behaving like it, I know Thanksgiving isn’t about a clean house, or a turkey. I will be trying to stop and consider how incredibly much I have to be thankful for. The list is long including the wonderful people in my life, the farm and animals, a great business partner (thank you Sue!), excellent help (thank you Debbie, Susan, Bill, Deborah, Caroline, Ava, Ben…Alice, Connie, Cheryl, Dave and John), a great landlord (thank you Endless Summer Harvest) and especially all our customers and supporters (happily way too long to list, but thank you each and all).

This is a good start and I can refine and expand my gratefullness over the next two days.

Then it’s back to work! Hope to see you if you are here over the weekend. We will be at the Falls Church Farmers market on Saturday and the Dupont Circle, DC Farmers market on Sunday.

Bringing: Romney, Shropshire double twist, the Corriedale/Corrie cross, Leicester Lonwool/Border Leicester, Alpaca/Merino, preview yarns: Montadale Woolen, Montadale baby and Cotswold lace, odds & ends, prepared roving for spinning and felting.

Plus, if you are looking for a fabulous gift for someone, we do have Susan Burke original felted bucket bags…or yarn makes a pretty fabulous gift too.

Hope you have a warm, wonderful Thanksgiving.

Gretchen

Sampson comes to woo the girls

The girls were starting to worry just a little bit. Here it is, mid-November and no suitor yet. But yesterday I went up to Maryland to Triple R Farm to fetch Sampson, a very handsome young Romney Ram with “georgeous” black fleece. His owner/shepherd, Michelle Rilley told me to not wreck that fleece…it is already spoken for (I promise to keep him healthy and fed). He arrived after dark, so I couldn’t see introductions, but everybody seemed happy this morning.

Did you see us on TV? Yeah, I don’t watch TV in the morning either…but if you are interested, the video (three 4 minute spots, shot live last week) is posted on our site, or directily on the Fox-5 site. Thank you so much to Jean and Bob Galey of Catoctin Creek Farm in Jefferson, Maryland for bringing their beautiful white Romney ewe and to Irene and Jim Mandracchia of Beaucaire Farm in Purcellville, Virginia for letting us borrow two Tunis ewes so we could demonstrate how different the breeds of sheep are and their wool. Of course, we were at Sue and Bill Bundy’s (RedGate Farm) in Leesburg, Virginia and showed off Sue’s beautiful Karakul sheep.

Weekend farmers markets:

Saturday we will be at the Falls Church, Virginia farmers market. We have moved up a spot and we are now right on the corner of Park Avenue and the driveway in (where Greenstones usually is). This week is the last drop in learn to knit class…might be a bit chilly. Exploring an inside refuge if it is too cold for fingers to work well…

Then Sunday we will be at the Dupont FreshFarm market in DC.

Packing up to bring to market:

• Targhee 3-ply
• Karakul*
• Tunis*
• Border Leicester aran weight
• Tunis/alpaca nature dyed
• Shropshire baby yarn (on sale, but only a few skeins left)
• knitting kits for bottle cozies and coasters
• alpaca/Merino lace weight
• odds & ends
• Sue Burke handcrafted bags*

* we have just a few of Sue’s knit-to-felt bags and each one is a unique creation. They are available for sale, or use them as inspiration and buy the yarns/pattern to make your own. If you have anyone on your holiday list that would appreciate something really special, this might be it…

And on Sunday only: Solitude honey. It is sort of hidden because I keep it bundled up. It’s raw honey (not pasturized), that begins to crystalize below 50 degrees. Even if it does start to crystalize, it is fine (Europeans expect and like it crystalized). You can carefully warm it back to liquid, but don’t microwave or overheat or you will kill the magic good things that you want from raw honey.

Do come to the market and get great local food to be thankful for next week…and yarn for a project to work on in front of the fire, or a parade or football game or something…

See you!

Gretchen

Phew, we’re all home again

Hope everyone has their power back, or even better, never lost it in the hurricane. Sue, Bill and Tinkerbell made it home from the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair safe and sound, but they were driving through some occasionally white rain up I81. They arrived back at the warehouse just as Sandy was really picking up. Here in Loudoun County there was some pretty big tree damage, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Hope all of you up there are okay.

Tinkerbell has earned an oil change for all her many miles (think we did over 5,000 in October) and hard weather travels, but she has to wait until next week. I need her for heading to the Falls Church (Virginia) Farmers market this Saturday and (!) The Dupont Circle FreshFarm Market (DC) on Sunday. Weather forecast is for dry with maybe even a little sun (please!).

This week at the markets:

We are bringing warm yarns! I am freezing. How did November happen so fast?

* Corriedale/Corriedale Cross woolen spun
* Romney, lustrous, aran weight
* Shropshire double twist (see the Kimono vest designed by Joan Hutton that uses both the Romney and the Shrop together, we have the pattern and love to help pick out color combinations)
* Icelandic
* the last three Dorset sock kits (that the Yarn Harlot knit when she was cold)
* preview skeins of our new baby yarn: Montadale baby, it’s pretty beautiful
* Alpaca/Merino lace weight
* Odds & Ends

I’m sure most of you had a knitting or spinning project lined up in case of power failure (the perfect non-electric activity). But in case you were empty handed, come by and pick out a warm and comforting project for the short days and long nights ahead.

I’ll leave you with Sue’s view as she begins evening chores: a stampede of Karakuls heading for dinner!

Hope to see you at the markets this weekend!