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

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

The best part of the weekend was meeting new customers and even better…customers returning that met us last year. We so appreciate your support and enthusiasm about our efforts to make beautiful, useful yarn, support local small farms by providing a market for their good wool and share our love of different breeds and types of wool. Another highlight was seeing all the beautiful hand knitted sweaters, scarves, skirts, shawls etc. etc that paraded by the booth including a number of show and tell items that people made from the yarn they bought from us last year. A highlight for me was the fabulous scarf that Nancy Marchant (author of Knitting Brioche) knit from the Corriedale/Corriedale cross yarn:

Sue was wearing a vest she knit from Sally Melville’s book, and who should come to admire it but Sally Melville! pretty cool. And Nancy Bush came to visit us with Nancy Marchant…see that open wallet? Now Nancy has some Solitude Wool Targhee yarn. We wonder what she might make with it? There is something to look forward to.

This Sunday we will be back to the Dupont Circle Farmers market in DC. Ahhhh home!
We are going to bring the yarns we were highlighting last weekend:
The Targhee, including a number of new colors that aren’t on the web site yet (give me a week or so…)
The Romney, ditto on the colors
The Shropshire double twist and the great ruffled scarf (free Ravelry pattern)
and the Corriedale bulky. Vogue Knitting highlighted pillows and throws in their winter edition and had a display near our booth of the them and a covered ottoman. Too bad they used such soft yarns, they were already showing wear. If they had used our Corriedale for them they would look beautiful for years and years!
The Clun Forest solid dyed. This is marked down because it is the last of the batch, but there are quite a few skeins of each color. This is a great opportunity!

The weather forecast for Sunday is nice. Do come!
and if you are wanting something in addition to the list above, do email me and we will be happy to bring it along: f-fsolitude@mindspring.com

Thanks!
-Gretchen

We will be in booths 2114 and 2116 on the second floor of the marketplace. It is the same spot we were in last year. The highlights in my mind are: 1. new colors of the Targhee 3 ply yarn including some handpainted skeins that are the first with our new 4 yd skein winder. I think it is going to open up some new creative dyeing possibilities. 2. We have three new samples to help show off our yarns courtesy of Chris Rose, a long time DC customer. (2.1) One is “Daybreak” designed by Stephen West and knit with two colors of the Targhee yarn (pattern available on Ravelry).

photo by Patrick Gonzales

(2.2) The second is a free pattern on Ravelry, Ruffled scarf- Ullas-Schal by Margareite Dolff in our Shropshire double twist yarn. and here is Chris modeling it

(2.3) And last, but not least, is a pattern from Nancy Marchant from her book Knitting Brioche, “Laars Manchetten” which is Dutch for boot cuff. These are knit using the Brioche stitch which is double sided and therefore reversible. The yarn is our Border Leicester sport weight yarn. I love them.

Since we have two spaces this year we can bring more yarn…so hope you are also going to be a VKL and can come see us!!

And to finish off, wanted to share some photos from yesterday morning when we had snow on the ground and fog. It was a bit mystical, and so unexpected after our spring like weather for the market last Sunday.

• We are going to the FreshFarm market at Dupont (in Washington DC) this Sunday. Remember it is now winter hours: 10am to 1pm and we will be on the other side of the street from where we have been (which is really nice for us to get the sun and to be able to park next to the stand). We will take these yarns: Alpaca-Merino lace weight, Border Leicester bulky (almost sold out and it is really nice!), the Corriedale bulky, the Leicester Longwool and Border Leicester nature dyed yarn, the Shropshire baby yarn, the Suffolk-Dorset boot sock yarn (really nice for sweaters, kids knits, shawls etc and socks too), the Tunis-Alpaca and ready to spin or felt roving.

• The following weekend we will be at Vogue Knitting Live in NYC at the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Holy smokes! We aren’t quite as worked up as last year, but almost. We are going to have a double booth and lights (I think…) so hope to have room for people to actually get into the booth this year. We were so excited to see some friendly DC Solitude customers last year! We hope lots of folks will come. I don’t know what classes might still be open, but just coming to the marketplace is really interesting, there are very Vogue fashion shows (two different runways) and demos, yarn tastings, celebrity book signings…and man the knitting celebs are so there! Kaffe Fasset, Clara Parkes, Nancy Marchant, Ysolda to drop names of people I’m looking out for. So if you are interested in dropping in to the marketplace, you can purchase tickets online (and the lines last year were daunting, so this is a really good idea) and get a free gift certificate. I’ll send an email next week with our line up of yarn and other particulars.

• Lamb update from RedGate…they are growing up really too fast I think. Here are the photos Sue just sent me of the little girls

snuggling sisters

• and look what we got for Christmas, a special purple birdhouse…with a leaping goat. We have it hung where we can see it from the livingroom. Just waiting for spring to see who will move into this fine place.

Hope you can come to the market Sunday, if there is something we don’t have on our list to bring that you would like, drop me an email by Friday morning and we will pack it in: f-fsolitude@mindspring.com
The weather forecast is for warmer temps (thank goodness!) but possible showers. Right now I’d say it is a 90% chance of us coming, but if the rain is bad we will stay home. Check the web site by 7am if you want to know for sure. I will post if we are not coming, otherwise, assume we will be there.
Thanks,
Gretchen

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

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!

However, we will bring some of the new colors with us this weekend. Two markets! Saturday we have our special appearance at the Leesburg Farmers Market. We are looking forward to seeing our Loudoun neighbors and hope we can attract some of the Loudoun Needleworkers, Blue Ridge Spinners and Weavers, Waterford Weavers and Loudoun Knitters to come see the new yarns and visit with us (Guild members get a 10% discount).

Sunday we will be (as usual) at the Dupont FreshFarm Market.

Here is what we are bringing this weekend:
Alpaca/Merino lace weight yarn
The Border Leicester Sport weight nature dyed yarn (the most beautiful black walnut is this one!)
Corriedale/Corrie cross yarn
Targhee 3-ply
Border Leicester Bulky
and a Leesburg favorite: the odds and ends bins
I’m also bringing some special jars of honey with comb inside. It would make a special holiday present for just about anyone.

okay, so I spent all my time today dyeing yarn, so I’m really rushed for this email. Sorry. Next week I’ll do better, but here are some photos of Sue’s new Karakul lambs to make up. First…Mr. Brownie:

and another set of twins, way to go Sue!

These are some of my favorite colors, gray, green, rusty orange, bronzy brown. Fall colors like this used to make my heart swell. Now the lack of light seems to make me sad. I’m searching for the thrill. Ohhh November.

But! Sunday the sun should be out and we will all be happy, getting ready for the first best holiday of the season: Thanksgiving.
We will be at Dupont (DC Farmer’s Market) with:
The Romney again…bring your copy of Knit Local, pick out 5 colors of the Romney to knit the fabulous gloves therein…and get one of the skeins free.
Icelandic nature dyed yarns
Corriedale/Corrie cross (new handpainted colors not on the web site yet, sorry)
the Border Leicester bulky yarn (one skein makes a very handsome scarf suitable for a special gift)
Alpaca/Merino lace weight
the odds and ends bins
roving
Sue Burke’s designer bags (with the designers eye for color selection, beautifully knit and finished)
and honey!

wanted to let you all know that we will be at the Leesburg Homegrown Farmers market on Dec 3rd and 10th. come see us in our home County!

and last, a note to Karen A.: got your email asking for yarn recommendation for the Pole sweater. I sent you a long email but it came back undeliverable…help! contact me again please.

If we don’t see you, have a wonderful Thanksgiving and thank you for all your support. We are grateful.
-Gretchen
f-fsolitude@mindspring.com