First, our big news! We are really excited and proud to be new vendors at the Falls Church (Virginia) farmers market. This Saturday is our first time. We have made a few trips in in preparation and I can tell you it is a really, really nice market. There are several vendors we know from Dupont, but there are quite a few we didn’t know, including a vendor that makes mini-donuts right there (so dangerous!). I also got really great strawberries. The hours for Summer are 8:00am to noon, directions on the web site link above. I think the plan is for us to be on the grass at the front of the market but I won’t know until we get there. Do look for us! say hey!

Sunday we will be at the Dupont FreshFarm market as usual. And it is Mother’s Day! All you knitting, corcheting, spinning and felting mothers; wouldn’t you love a present of local yarn or spinning fiber? All you children of those mothers, consider a beautiful bouquet of skeins of yarn for your treasured mom. We are bringing lots of beautiful yarns this week to both markets:
• Border Leicester sport yarn in two undyed and many natural dyed colors
• Icelandic yarn in lots of undyed and several natural dyed colors
• Romney in four undyed and quite a few synthetic dyed colors
• Shropshire double twist, white and dyed
• Shropshire baby yarn, white and dyed
• Alpaca Merino lace weight in undyed black and a few dyed-in-the-wool colors
• Targhee 3-ply in white and dyed colors
• Roving: many breeds and colors including our new Cotswald pin drafted that is really beautiful

Brief report from Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival:
1. It was a great weekend, the weather much better than forecast (thank you!) and we were thrilled to see lots of old friends and meet many new ones.
2. Cindy O’Neill won a 3rd place ribbon for the crocheted capelet (her original design) made with our Border Leicester yarn and a first for another piece too. Congratulations Cindy!

3. I got my Knitter’s Life List signed by Gwen Steege (again!, thanks Gwen)
4. Rebecca Fox won the “Freddie” award for the weaver of the most unusual handwoven article in the Skein and Garment show with her blanket (mostly Solitude Wool yarns in warp and weft). Congratulations Rebecca!
5. We got to pick up two, freshly spun for us, yarns from mills: Green Mountain Spinnery and Battenkill Fibers. Thank you for saving us shipping costs! Look for these new yarns this summer…
6. Sue met a very fine Clun Forest ram:

I believe we are purchasing his fleece…can hardly wait to get enough wool for another batch of Clun Forest yarn.

Thank you all for reading this and supporting us! We appreciate you!
Gretchen

(more…)

Good Morning!
Boy is it Spring: new colors in the dye pots, a personal (aspiration) push for, or at, spring cleaning, mowers breaking, the garden knee high in weeds…(a few beds are cleaned up and planted thanks to Joan), my desk is getting a bit deep in paper, etc. Basically…start early, go, go, go and stop in the evening because you just must…not because you’ve really made progress. This is my problem, and I do know it’s an attitude issue. The sheep are so much more advanced. They take everything in stride and just handle it. Including loss.

Tomorrow, says my calendar, is the first possible lambing here at Solitude. But yesterday I rounded the garage heading to the barn to do chores and I knew in two steps that something was up. The sheep were just looking at me telegraphing news. Sure enough, I see two white lambs up and standing with Oklahoma who looks calm. Cool! I just turned around to call Sue (I’ll be late) and go fetch the lamb “stuff” (it was on my list to get all that together yesterday). So, I get back out there in a few minutes and Okla has moved over under a tree about 30 feet away from where I first saw her. I get a picture and think one of the lambs was exhausted by the effort and is laying down.

But I go over…and the lamb is obviously dead, in fact, stiff. I know I saw two up and moving and I’m sure my eyebrows knitted together trying to figure this out. How could it be? Well, I look back over where I first saw them, and sure enough, there is the other lamb. Okla had triplets. I try not to feel bad. This is nature. I wonder if I had done a 3 am check and could have assisted with the birth, would the lamb have lived? I don’t know. Maybe, but I didn’t. So once she had showed me, she let it go and concentrated on her two boys. Here they are, shortly after settled in to a clean pen (called a “jug”) to relax for a day or two.

I’ve posted more photos of the lambs including their evening out in the pasture on another young thing…Solitude Wool has a Facebook page. There is a link on our homepage, and I probably should be able to put one in here, but it is beyond my current skills…just look for Solitude Wool. Hope you “like” us!

What else is up? Sue! up in a wool bag:

Sue is stomping in Montadale fleece that was sheared a month or two ago. We got a lot more than our usual haul, and this fleece will be heading north for scouring. We will see how this works. We are pretty excited about this beautiful soft wool. Thinking about what kind of yarn we want to make (oh boy!). And then we got back a box of Montadale yarn from the mill that I had forgotten about, a small batch of Montadale that we had saved up fleece before we met the new farm. This yarn will be the follow up yarn to our Shropshire baby yarn. It feels pretty great. Sorry you don’t get to see it yet, but look for Montadale pretty soon (Maryland Sheep and Wool?)

Last for today…Sunday we will be at the Dupont FreshFarm market in DC. We are planning to bring: Alpaca/Merino, Border Leicester sport weight (nature dyed), Border Leicester aran weight, Icelandic (nature dyed), Leicester Longwool/Border Leicester (nature dyed), Romney, Shropshire baby, Suffolk/Dorset sock yarn including yoga sock kits, Targhee 3-ply, roving, 4 white Romney sheep pelts (all I will have this year) and honey.

Gotta get going, I’m behind already!
Remember Sunday the market opens at 8:30am for the regular season,
Gretchen

First in a series of on-farm, direct experience learning about sheep breeds and their wool

K A R A K U L

RedGate Karakul sheep in full fleece

We want to share with you the way we get to learn about wool of different breeds of sheep: meet them, hang out and watch them, then stick your hands into the raw fleece on a skirting table, and if you like, knit with some Karakul yarn.
Sue Bundy, Solitude Wool partner and Chief of Fleece is inviting us into her farm, RedGate, just outside of Leesburg, Virginia. Sue raises and shows (mucho ribbons) Karakul sheep. Karakul is a rare breed and Sue works hard to promote and save these sheep. Sue will talk about the breed and introduce her sheep. You will also get a chance to see their chickens, turkeys and bees.

Sheared ewe with her lamb

other RedGate critters

freshly shorn Karakul fleece

During the day we are offering a Knitting mini-workshop: Karakul knit-to-felt
Knit and felt a coaster using Solitude Karakul yarn (including yarns specially dyed for this workshop), then take home enough yarn to finish a set of four. You should know how to knit, but it will be simple knitting and kids 8 and older may participate.
Two sessions: 12:30 and 2:30, space limited, reservations suggested (advance payment to reserve)

Or, bring your knitting (or spindle, or crochet…) with you, sit near the pasture and just soak up a bit of farm: sheep, chickens etc…

field trip details:
date: Sunday, June 3, 2012
when: Noon to 4:00pm
where: RedGate Farm, 17883 Running Colt Place, Leesburg, Virginia 20175
how much: $15 entrance (and you get a $10 coupon towards Solitude Wool purchase that day)
workshop (optional): $30 includes instruction, pattern and yarn

Reservations suggested for the Knitting mini-workshop (limited number of participants), but if there is space left, you may join the group that day.
To reserve, send an email to Gretchen at: f-fsolitude@mindspring.com, she will send you a PayPal request to complete your reservation.

Greetings on this rainy, gray day.
Sorry to say that I am still sick. Turns out, it is pneumonia. I am improving, but it is very slow. I’m going to listen to my body and stay home. Solitude Wool will miss the Dupont Farmers market again this week. Sorry! Promise we will be back with bells on asap.

Since I don’t have regular business, seems like a good opportunity to share with you wool appreciators one of the things shepherds have to consider to produce the best wool: when to shear. What time of year?, before lambing?, after? how often? Not doing it right can wreck a fleece. As I bet you all are learning, different breeds of sheep grow different types of wool, and how fast they grow it is pretty wildly different. Most Fine wool, Down type and Medium wool breeds grow wool slowly and usually get sheared once a year. Many Primitive breeds grow their fleece so fast (up to an inch a month), that they need to be sheared every 6 months. And then there are the Longwool breeds that might make it a full year, but those last two months might really dry out or mat the fleece. As a rule of thumb…it is a good idea to shear ewes about a month before lambing. So, for spring lambing, much of the shearing happens from January through April, but farms might shear nearly any month during the year depending on their own circumstances.

Sue (our Chief of Fleece) is just starting her busiest season. Every fleece that we buy is hand selected one at a time. And the way Sue likes to do it is on farm, on shearing day as they come right of the sheep, still warm. Sue tells me all the time that she wishes everyone could sink their hands into hundreds of fleeces and how much they would learn. It is, however, both very hard work (I attest to it!) and one of the most important factors that distinguish our yarns. We can’t make really good yarn without really good wool, and all fleeces are not equal. It isn’t complicated, but takes real love of wool…or you might start to cut corners. Not Sue. On the other hand, we want to provide a market for wool from small local farms. We want to buy as many good fleeces as we can for the fairest price. It’s a balancing act.

This Sunday, WeatherLea Farm will get their Romney sheep sheared (fingers crossed for decent weather). We have been buying fleeces from WeatherLea from the very first year Sue and I started Solitude Wool. Their fleeces were in our first batch of Romney yarn and I think, just about every batch since too. WeatherLea is like many Loudoun County, Virginia farms in that it is small and works hard on several fronts to make the farm “work.” The Baldwins have a vineyard, sheep, llamas and a beautiful 1790′s farm that is a wonderful venue for weddings, events and weekend getaways in a charming cottage. They use their wool to have custom blankets made (available for sale) and occasional other wool products, but those great sheep keep growing good wool. We love that we can buy it from them.

So…we have been talking for a couple years now about having a Solitude Wool…something?… at WeatherLea… sometime. Maybe this spring when there are new lambs?
If we have an event…what would you all be most interested in? a knitting class? a wine tasting? farm touring? learning about Romneys…??? We would love to hear what you would like, and if it is worth a day trip to the country. And to get you interested, here are WeatherLea farm reps to invite you out:

Thanks!
Man, do I hope I’m back to the market in two weeks!!!!!
Gretchen