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

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

We are doing pretty well getting organized and packed…but things are still jumping:
Debbie had all the skein winders going today with new natural dyed colors in the Border Leicester sport weight:

And Sue and I are setting up the different batches of yarn so we can bring and display as much as possible without creating claustrophobia in the booth (we hope anyway).

These are the yarns we are bringing:
• Border Leicester aran weight
• Targhee 3-ply
• Suffolk/Dorset boot sock
• Shropshire baby
• Border Leicester sport wt (nature dyed)
• Tunis
• Karakul (several new colors)
• Alpaca/Merino dyed-in-the-wool lace wt
• Corriedale/Corrie X
• Icelandic (many natural sheep colors and nature dyed)
• Shropshire double twist and
• Romney

And, we have some new rovings to bring too. Here are the breeds we will have (some natural colors, some dyed-in-the-wool)
• Border Leicester
• Coopworth
• Dorset
• Finn
• Icelandic
• Karakul
• Leicester Longwool
• Lincoln
• Romney
• Shetland
• Targhee

We are in the same location as last year: N26. When you come in the main gate, walk straight up the hill on Main Gate Lane towards Rt 70. When you pass the Yurt, continue straight, you’re close to our tent.

So…besides coming to see us, here are a couple things to consider doing:

• see the sheep shows, especially the Karakul show that will probably be about 11:30 am on Saturday and cheer Sue and her sheep on.

• watch the Parade of Breeds on Sunday at 12:30 in the show ring.

• if you are lucky, but I bet it’s full now, it would be really really cool to take Deb Robson’s class “Sheep Breeds Walk About.” I believe they will be making a stop at Sue’s RedGate pen to see her Karakuls. You can go see them on your own anytime, they are in barn 1.

• see the Sheep to Shawl competition on Sunday morning. There is a junior team competing: the Kool Jamz I believe is their name. They are using some Solitude Wool for their warp…but it’s great to see all the teams

• check out the skein and garment competition. Cindy O’Neill is entering the crocheted capelet that was exhibited in Annapolis last summer (it’s made with our Border Leicester sport yarn). We hope she wins a big ribbon!

• go to the book signing on Sunday: Andrea Price (who has designed a great vest pattern for us), Deb Robson, Gwen Steege and Clara Parkes are all signing their books. These are our wool/knitting heros, and some of our best promoters too!

Okay, that’s it. Gotta go, still have lots to do.
Hope to see you at the festival!!!!!
Gretchen

And we are looking forward to the following weekend: Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival! Hope you have it on your calendar and I am hoping for dry weather! More next week, but add a note to find N26 and come see us.

Goat kid name update:

In the foreground of both photos with the black legs: Tina Modatti, a black and white photographer who also was an actress in early movies. I never knew about Tina Modatti. Tina the kid is the ringleader, all my photos seem to have her in front and the first to jump. In the middle of the second photo with the black chest is Dora Carrington, another artist I didn’t know. She was a painter and hung out with The Bloomsbury Group. Last is Dube, he is standing on the right in the second photo. We have had a goat named Jean (Dubuffet) before, but he just seems like a Dubbie…and we gave in. Thank you everyone for your suggestions. We will have to save them for future years too and I loved learning so many new artists.

signing off with a smile from Pearl,
G

Vanessa, an American Alpine dairy goat, did have her kids on Friday.
Here is the back end shot of her on Thursday:

and here are the triplets yesterday:

All three of them were good size and about even in weight; two does and a buck. Good job Vanessa! and she is a really good mother.
They are sooo black, and sooo white. Ahhhh youth! With three of them we won’t get any goat milk for awhile, oh well. We name all the goats after artists. Vanessa is Vanessa Bell. Have any name suggestions? We have used so many, we are not coming up with names easily.

Thanks, hope you can celebrate Earth Day today.
Gretchen

So, this will be extra short, I need to get out there…pulling weeds, welcoming baby goats (Vanessa is in labor) and dyeing wool!

This Sunday, when it will be wool wearing weather, we will be joining over 100 other vendors of all sorts at Earth Day Loudoun celebrations. It is from 11am to 4pm right off the Greenway (in Loudoun County, Virginia to all those of you on the email list not close). Their web site will have the directions and you can see all the music, exhibits, vendors etc etc.

Bring a water bottle, they are trying to get us all to not buy bottled water…so then you can stop by our stand and pick up a kit to knit yourself a bottle cozy. It works fabulously to keep your water cool when it’s hot, keep it from sweating and then when it’s cold, you can use it on your coffee travel mug to keep it hot. Easy to knit, then felt.

If we do get rain, we are considering it to be an Earth Day gift to our own earth which needs it soooo badly (we are getting really nervous out here about rain for the garden, pastures and mostly…for hay). We may scale back what we bring to our booth if it’s raining, but, we promise to come.

I did get photos from our mill trip up on the Facebook page (Solitude Wool) yesterday. I put them in four different albums to make it easier to identify the different mills.
Lamb update: here is Sooner, one of the first born lambs that I took yesterday. They are growing up so fast. He is looking sort of ramly, except when he is yelling for his mother.

Things are jumping here at Solitude, mostly lambs!

Meet Diamond (Head) and Pearl (Harbor), daughters of Honolulu. Are they not cute? Black lambs are so hard to photograph though. I will keep working at it, but you are likely to see more white ones over the next few weeks. There are other new lambs too, a set of twins born last Saturday and another set born yesterday afternoon. So far half are black and half white. The older ones are just starting to gang up now. I really should try to shoot some video and share. You just can’t help but laugh. I do have a few more photos on the Solitude Wool facebook page and will continue to add more.

Before I launch into the mill trip, I wanted to show some newly dyed yarns that are actually up on the web site now and we will have at the Dupont FreshFarm market (DC) this Sunday:

These are two new handpainted Suffolk/Dorset boot sock yarns: parrot head and spring meadow. They will make the happiest socks ever…or an, “I want to be noticed” ripple wrap (we have Debbie Deutsch’s pattern at market).

Three new solid colors of the Romney yarn…vivid. All these photos were taken with overcast skies, but in the sun…they will glow. These are colors (magenta, green envy and poppy) that I think Kristin Nicholas would like. Our friend Kelli Arrington knitted the great gloves that Kristin designed with our Romney yarn for Knit Local. I’ll bring them to market.

And these are three of the four (missed one, sorry) new handpaint colors of the Shropshire baby yarn. We have had a good run on this yarn, both for baby things (blankets anyone?) or other light weight knitting. Sue Burke, who knows more about knitting our yarns than we do…and who has designed most of the patterns we offer, will be with me at the market this Spring. She can really help you pick out yarn, and both of us love to help pick out colors, so come by and see us!

It isn’t just lambs hopping at Solitude Wool, Sue and I have been hopping too. Last week we made a whirlwind trip up North to deliver wool, pick up yarn and tour mills. Three and a half days, over 1800 miles. I’ve never driven past so much beauty and so many interesting places/antiques/Dairy Queens without stopping before; we were focused. We started up in Maine at Riteway Scouring, delivering our largest batch of wool so far to be scoured. Here is the Montadale in bags (that you saw Sue stomping last email):

Next we visited Bartlettyarns, also in Maine. This is a very wonderful old mill (early 1900′s) that is still in operation. It has a mule spinner that makes woolen yarn pretty much like a hand spinner using the long draw method. This is something I’ve heard about many times, but I never “got it” until I saw it. We loved meeting the people there and are looking for the right wool to send their way for a Solitude Wool mule spun yarn.

We somehow managed to visit another mill in Maine that same day which might also be a good source for us if we find the right wool. Next day we visited Green Mountain Spinnery in Putney, Vermont. Here we got to pick up a finished yarn (look for it in the next few months), drop off some North Country Cheviot for a new weaving yarn, and get to see the mill and meet the folks in their natural habitat. We like Green Mountain. They have a shop in the mill too, so if you are ever near Putney, …do stop in!

Last stop: Battenkill Fibers in New York state. Here we saw some of our wool in process.

This is Cotswald being spun into a lace weight yarn. It looks so shiny and beautiful! This is a relatively new mill. Their focus is supporting local NY farms. We also learned that their equipment was purchased especially to make great sock yarn! Fabulous! We are excited and shopping for just the right wool to send them.

I thought I would document the trip and put it up on facebook while we were on the trip—ha! Then I thought I would get it up there before sending this email, wrong again. Will make a third attempt, so if you want to see more, check out the facebook page in a few days.

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

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.

what season is this?

the wonderful part of growing things is you get enjoy them so many times: anticipate how great they will be, then appreciate them at their peak…and again when you get to eat…or dye with them! This year’s daffodils will get put to use very soon, but as you fiber folks know, textile arts require many steps and mucho time to finish (slow yarn!). If you want to knit in season though, you’re in luck. There are daffodil dyed yarns available in the Border Leicester/Leicester Longwool, the Icelandic, and one skein in the Border Leicester sport.

This Saturday, St. Patrick’s day, we will be in Vienna Virginia at the Community Center for the Uniquities Fiber Farmers Market. This is a gem of an event. Do you want to get to know the growers of natural fibers in the DC fiber shed? This is the best place to start. We are going to have a guest with us this Saturday, Kathy Owens, a new knitwear designer. Kathy is almosty ready to publish several patterns (they are in the final editing stages). Three of the patterns were developed with Solitude yarns and Kathy is offering them (draft previews) free with a yarn purchase from us. Too nice of her! They are good patterns.

Then Sunday we will be at the Dupont FreshFarm Market in DC. Even though it is feeling like summer…it is still the winter market and hours are 10am to 1pm. We will pare down our offerings a little (Sue and I couldn’t fit in the booth last time), but are still trying to figure out how to bring it all…

Hope to see you this weekend, or via the website!
Gretchen