Greetings!
This Saturday will be our first time doing two events at once (a milestone I think): we will be at the Falls Church Farmers market from 8 am to Noon and we will be on the Loudoun County Spring Farm Tour at our warehouse location with Endless Summer Harvest in Purcellville from 10:00 am to 4 pm.

Falls Church: We had a lovely time last week for our first time at market. Thank you to our friends who came to welcome us and all the new local fiber folk. Our official spot is a little off the main path, so keep looking for us; we are under a lovely tree on Park Avenue, just to the east of the main entrance. Each week, we bring different yarns, but if you are interested in something not listed, you can send me an email and we will bring it for you. This week at Falls Church:
• Alpaca Merino lace weight
• Tunis, woolen spun, worsted weight
• Karakul (fabulous felting yarn, see felted bag samples)
• Border Leicester aran weight
• Corriedale bulky (we have a wonderful pillow pattern for this yarn)
• Dorset boot sock kits (not too many left after the Yarn Harlot knit a pair!)
• Leicester Longwool/Border Leicester nature dyed yarn
• Shropshire baby yarn
• Suffolk/Dorset boot sock yarn
• Tunis/alpaca nature dyed yarn
• roving for spinning or felting
do I really think I can fit all this in the truck…hmmm.

Farm Tour: Come see our new digs at Endless Summer Harvest farm in Purcellville. Sue will be there to show off our new space. We are so thrilled to have room to store the yarn on cones, a great place for our new motorized skeining equipment, all our inventory, a big table for mailing off orders around the country (and occasionally across the seas), all the market tents and accoutrement and even a table for us to meet at. We will have yarn on display and for sale, Debbie will have the skein winders going, our friend Nancy will be there spinning plus…you can also see the Endless Summer Harvest greenhouses and get a lettuce wrap. The weather sounds great! Do come!

Coming up really soon: June 3rd Field day at RedGate farm to see/experience Karakul sheep and fiber. I will be sending out information to those of you registered for the knit-to-felt mini-workshops. There are still a few spots open, send me an email (f-fsolitude@mindspring.com) if you would like to save a spot, but if you want to just come to the farm, you don’t need to pre-register. $15 entrance fee includes a $10 towards a Solitude Wool purchase that day. Details here

And at Solitude…it’s spring rush:

This is what most of my photos of the triplets look like…a blur of jumping, running, butting, climbing. The lambs are already concentrating on the important things…eating. I will post more photos on our facebook page.

Thank you all, hope to see you at the market and at Solitude Wool warehouse.
Gretchen

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

Good evening! Hope you have had a nice leap day.

Well, I’m pretty well fixed. Sue and I will be back to the farmers market this Sunday at Dupont Circle in DC. Thank goodness.

I haven’t mentioned it, but a generous offer and unbelievable opportunity came our way thanks to Mary Ellen Taylor of Endless Summer Harvest (a fellow Loudoun County Farm and vendor at Dupont). We have taken over a corner of their big warehouse. I’m sure I haven’t thanked Mary Ellen and all the folks at ESH enough (a fault of mine, I need to follow Mary Ellen’s example, because she is so good at expressing her appreciation for everyone!). This is life altering for us. Here at Solitude and at RedGate, we were about to suffocate in mountains of fleeces and yarn. We are still moving and organizing and it is already great.

One of the great benefits of crawling from under our fiber seems to be creating a little clear space in our minds to think about things in a new way. It may take awhile for us to work it out, but we are going to try to bring a selection of all our yarns to every market. We hope you will find just what you need and we aren’t just telling you about a yarn that we don’t have with us. We will have to bring less of each batch, but can check how much is available and will deliver next time we are at market or ship (no charge). From us to DC usually takes only one day. Over the next few markets we would love to have your feedback. Is it better this way or would you rather go back to the old way?

There are some new yarns to highlight this week:
Alpaca/Merino lace weight yarn: we have two new dyed in the wool colors to add to the palette. Both these yarns are primarily white alpaca. One is 80% white with 20% dyed Merino wool that is a lovely tropical teal color

and the other new color is white with some black alpaca and 20% dyed Merino in purples (skein and knitted sample on the right). I photographed it with the black and gray alpaca with 20% dyed Merino in pinks and purples for comparison.

On the web site, quantities of labeled skeins available are indicated, but we have lots available. This yarn is dyed in the wool and blended at the mill, meaning there are no dye lots: the whole color lot matches. Sue is almost finished knitting a lace shawl out of the black. Maybe she will have it to show this Sunday? It also works beautifully as a soft fine weft in weaving. Available on cones.

Another great thing that is possible because of more working room: fabulous new skeining equipment. We can make longer skeins which opens up new opportunities for me dyeing yarn. The larger skeins make it more successful to handpaint heavier yarns and the first experiments are with the Romney aran weight. I only got a couple done before the P-neumonia got me. Here is a peek:

These handpainted skeins are longer (than the solid and undyed skeins): 205 yds/187 meters; 7 oz./198 grams and are $49
In addition to the summer solstice color above I have one with dark blues on gray yarn. Plus, three new solid dyed colors: two blues and a new honey orange 2. Will have them at the market and up on the web site next week.

Hope to see you this Sunday or hear from you via email or web site.
Thanks,
Gretchen
f-fsolitude@mindspring.com

Sorry. I’m still sick (yes, you do hear a whine).
I don’t want to give this thing (virus?) to any of you, but especially not to Sue; so we are pulling the plug now.

If you were wanting/needing some yarn or roving this gray weekend, we do apologize. To everyone who was coming to the market…and what the hey, anyone of you on our email list, if you place an order this weekend we will refund the shipping cost (we don’t know how to tell the shopping cart to make an exception because I’m sick).

Stay warm and healthy!
Gretchen

This is Vanessa (on the rock) and Paula yesterday sunbathing. They are American Alpine dairy goats. They not only have a full time cook, maid, free healthcare etc. They also rule the roost here at Solitude. The sheep get what the goats decide they can have pretty much. I’m sure I wouldn’t change places with Vanessa (the queen) if I could, but sometimes I wonder who has the better life. I was trying to take advantage of the Spring weather the last two days, and I did do some dyeing, but this is what I should have done: laid on a rock in the sun all day. And now it’s groundhog day. I just heard that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow. He wouldn’t have if he were here in Loudoun County Virginia, very gray and raining here this morning. This weather is most strange and just makes you nervous. Will we get August weather in May? I hope not, but in the meantime I will try to take a lesson from the animals and just enjoy it now.

I don’t know if I can blame it on the weather, but I’m being sick. So I’ve stayed home and Sue and helpers are about to start doing inventory. We really, really work at keeping our inventory current and accurate, but it is pretty challenging and we are probably not using the best system. But by the end of the day we should not only know accurately what we have, but all the colors will be “together” again. Our market strategy has been to bring a pretty good amount of about 5 or our 15 different batches of yarn each week so there would be enough for a project, and then change up the batches each market. But maybe we should go about it differently. Since we will need to start from scratch to prepare for market, we are going to bring a sampler amount of all our different batches. If you need more for a project and purchase it at the market, we will ship it to you for free.

It’s worth a try. Would love to have your feedback about what works best for any of you Dupont market shoppers.

I’ll bring honey and Sue is bringing Karakul Sheep pelts. I haven’t seen them, but they are usually stunning.

Hope to be feeling great and have nice weather for Sunday, if not, I will send post early that we are staying home

enjoy whatever good thing you can today!
Gretchen
f-fsolitude@mindspring.com

and wooly Season’s Greetings!

Sue and I and all the folks we drag into the Solitude Wool endeavor (Joan, Bill and Debbie) wish you a warm and wonderful holiday. Hope we get to pass on those wishes in person to you this Sunday at the Dupont FreshFarm Market in DC (our last market of 2011).

And if you are more together than I…and can look ahead to January, we will be at Vogue Knitting Live in NYC again this year. It is Jan 14/15 and sounds like quite a line up…mucho knitting celebs. More about it in January…

Merry Christmas!!!
G

Howdy,
We will be at the Leesburg, Virginia HomeGrown Farmers market again this Saturday and the Dupont FreshFarm market on Sunday.
All different yarns this week:
•Border Leicester aran weight. This is our newest Border Leicester yarn (different than both the ones we had last week). It is a silky feeling, lustrous big hank of yarn that will drape beautifully and knit up fast. The palette to start is pretty traditional, some very handsome colors. Have a preppie person in your life (or yourself…) that prefers to express their creativity anyplace else besides their wardrobe? These are the colors for them. But they also can work for those of us who get excited by off the wall color combinations, here is the anchor to build on. And…right now, the yarn isn’t on the web site. You will have to come to the market to see/touch it. Soon though we will get this batch up.

three of the four new colors this week

some of the rest of the palette...

• the Karakul, the Tunis, and the last of the Tunis/Romney cross yarns. All the fabulous ingredients you need to make your own knit-to-felt bucket bag. We have the pattern, designed for us by Sue Burke. It is fun to knit, a magic transformation to felt and will be a handbag that will last, both in style and strength.
Now…if you don’t want to knit it, or don’t have time, we have several already made by Sue Burke, different color combinations and different sizes. They are beautiful.

• the Romney and the Shropshire double twist yarns. These are the two yarn ingredients in Joan Hutton’s Kimono vest pattern. I love this knitted vest. It is comfortable, very flattering because it has a vertical orientation, is easy to knit…and it uses a solid color (the Romney) in combination with a handpainted color (the Shropshire double twist) in the same way you can when you are weaving. I love handpainted yarns in a warp (and this vest). the colors move in and out with more grace and mystery than they do in most knitting.

detail of Joan Hutton's Kimono vest

Over the last few weeks of lucky warmth, I’ve been dyeing some new Romney colors and several new Shropshire handpainted yarns with this vest in mind. There are a multitude of new pairings. Too fun for me. I will display some together this weekend. I would love to suggest colors, especially to those of you who can’t make it to the market. If you are interested, email or call and we can discuss options.

the Romney and Shropshire together

• Kits! we will bring the yoga sock kits and the bottle cozy kits. Both are quick, small projects great for gifts: either for a knitter, or for you to knit for friends/family. they are both useful, different and wooly!

• bringing lots of wool roving beautifully prepared and ready to spin or felt. We have quite a many breeds and colors in 4oz. bags, enough for a hat or fingerless mittens. Two will be enough for a pair of socks or scarf, three enough for a generous scarf. We won’t bring more than one of each kind, but if you need more, we can get it to you. New this week: Dorset in undyed white. Socks anyone?

Last, anyone here read the Yarn Harlot’s blog? Well, that’s a silly question, I should ask if anyone doesn’t know the blog. Wow! Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is a knitting celeb. Stephanie bought one of our Dorset boot sock kits at Vogue Knitting Live last January. We, being farmers and not at all hip didn’t recognize her, but we did know of her (which shows you how much of a celeb she is, because we are really out of it!). I have been waiting all this time, hoping first that she would knit the kit…and then holding my breath that she would like it. Yeah! she did!. And that was the start of our excitement! We have been filling orders, dyeing yarn, filling orders, winding, balling, stacking, printing, cutting bamboo, filling orders and generally being amazed!

Thank you Yarn Harlot!
and hope to see you all this weekend, or hear from you!
Gretchen
f-fsolitude@mindspring.com

Hope everyone who got one likes it. I still have a list of orders I am working on filling, but there are some new kits back on the web site this afternoon. Get them while they last! That is the sad thing about artisan yarns. It is limited, I have only two more colors I can dye and soon we will have used it all up…until next year!

Salam!, Buenos dias!

Gretchen and Joan are back from Morocco and Madrid…phew! We just got back yesterday afternoon, so are still getting things back together and our heads back to farming/normal life. I haven’t had time to process it all yet, but here are some tourist shots that I couldn’t resist (I was yelling in the van until they stopped…) Here is the story…which I had seen, because friends who had been to Morocco had sent me a post card. These are Argon trees that have Argon nuts. The goats climb the trees and eat the nuts. Somehow, the goat digestive system does some “pre-processing” of the nuts to help eventurally create the famed argon oil. It is used in cosmetics or there is also an oil used for consumption. These goats were perched in two different trees right along the highway…they have perches built for them to space them out nicely for photos. I can see how they climb the trees…but how on earth do those shepherds get the goats to stand there and smile all day??? They weren’t tethered and we saw one jump down. Oh the mysteries of the orient!

To market: So, by Sunday I should have my head back in the Mid-Atlantic. We will bring all the stuff Sue was going to bring last week but couldn’t because of the rain: Corriedale cross, Corriedale bulky, roving, Shropshire double twist, some of all the kits we have I think, the alpaca/Merino and maybe something else. Weather sounds beautiful for the weekend. Boy, guess we missed lots of gray, cold, wet weather (judging from the knee high grass and rain gauge). Glad we could bring back some nice sun and warmth for you all.

Hope to see you this Sunday in DC!
-Gretchen
PS, if you need something not listed, send me an email by Saturday morning and will bring it to town for the market.
f-fsolitude@mindspring.com