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

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 at 5:30 pm and is filed under General, Newsletters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.