This is what we've packed, which is another way of saying, this is what will not be available on our website until we return and put everything away on 10/25/23 (but all our other yarns are still available online for purchase 😁):
We are bringing some new, never-before-seen, colors, which we are VERY excited to show you. Indigo dyed Border Leicester is packed, along with this year's Rhinebow which is on…… (drum roll)…… our lovely Clun Forest light! There is not one, but two versions of Rhinebow this year!! Both lean towards a more mature and less whimsical, but no less inspirational, take on the rainbow we saw over the Hudson River some years ago while we were visiting Rhinebeck.
"Wetlands Rhinebow" has colors that are reminiscent of festive Scandinavian decorations. Perfect for adding some color to drab winter days.
"Rhinebow cliff" has a more muted palette that captures the natural beauty of the Hudson Valley on a hazy autumn morning.
No matter which color you pick, Clun Forest light is an excellent yarn for vests, blankets, or any finished product that may need to get tossed in the washer and dryer. Clun Forest is a Down-type wool that resists felting and shrinking. Read more about that here.
With this superpower Clun Forest light is the perfect yarn for The Livestock Conservancy's current SE2SE Fiber Challenge: Babes & Tots.
]]>We have been preparing for this big moment all summer! Are you ready? We are! Come see us at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival (SVFF) this Saturday & Sunday, September 23 & 24, at the Clarke County Ruritan Fairgrounds, 890 West Main Street in Berryville, Virginia, 22611.
The entrance fee is only $5, and the gates open at 10:00 AM. We are in the Ruritan Building, booths 10/11, at the front, just inside the main door.
We will be bringing:
That's the good news. The bad news is all of this will not be available on our website until Tuesday after the festival -- sorry!
This is our closest to home Fiber Festival and we think it’s JUST RIGHT. Not too big, not too small. Berryville, Virginia is about 75 miles west of DC and should be a little less rainy this weekend. Wear your sweaters! and a raincoat....
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Farm Field Day: Karakul
Visit Hideaway Springs, a beautiful small farm in Loudoun County and meet their flock of Karakul sheep, a heritage breed with fat tails and a very interesting fleece. Spend time exploring Karakul sheep in a variety of ways! Event activities include:
A special feature of this year’s Farm Field Tour is the annual “Sustainable Cloth: Farm to Home and Closet” fashion show sponsored by Chesapeake Fibershed. This year-long challenge of creating garments and décor from natural fibers, dyes, and processing sourced within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed will highlight the potential for locally produced textiles.
The entrance fee is $25 ($10 of each ticket sale goes to Hideaway Springs); tickets are available from EventBrite and at the gate on Sunday. Weather is looking nice! Remember to set your clocks back one hour and have a leisurely morning.
Karakul sheep at Hideaway Springs Farm showing off their beautiful natural colors and fat tails. Karakuls may be the oldest domesticated sheep breed and originally come from Central Asia where these tails help them survive.
Karakul is one of the 21 breeds on the Livestock Conservancy’s priority list and part of their Shave ’Em to Save ’Em challenge. Hideaway Springs Farm brought five new lambs into the world this fall.
Restored log house on the farm. It is a B & B and will host the Oxford Rug Punch class during the event.
Karakul wool is long and strong and felts fabulously. Visitors will be able to try hands on felting directly with fleece and also with yarn for knit-to-felt coasters. The additional spinning class with teacher Caroline Hockenberry, will explore how to adjust each student’s spinning wheel to spin yarns that can be used for rug weaving, felting and knitting.
The second additional class: Oxford Needle Sheep Ornament taught by Karakul shepherd Kathy Donovan, is a make it and take it beginner workshop.
March 26: Solitude Wool Open Warehouse & Dye Day
May 6 & 7: Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival
October 21 & 22: New York Sheep and Wool Festival
November 5: Farm Field Day – Karakul! Hideaway Springs Farm
December: first 3 weekends: local Farmers’ Markets
Find us in our old spot in the Horticulture building, downstairs in booth 4 (D-4)
Special colorway (reskeined above and in process below): Rhinebow is Romney semi-worsted yarn; 18 skeins randomly dyed (they won't be the same one skein to the next, but all similar). This yarn will cheer you up twice (just like firewood): once when you knit it and again when you wear it. If Rhinebeck shoppers don’t get it all, Solitude Woolie Cindy has her eye on it....It’s a happy one!
We are also bringing:
Shave ’Em to Save ’Em breeds: Tunis (including new avocado dyed skeins), Clun Forest, Karakul and Cotswold yarns. Leicester Longwool, Jacob, Karakul, Horned Dorset and Tunis fibers.
Other small batch breed specific yarn and roving: Romney (other dyed colors plus 5 natural colors), Border Leicester (including new avocado dyed skeins drying in photo below), Montadale true woolen, Targhee 3-ply, Dorset hike, Llama-rama and home grown cashmere yarn. We have our custom woven throws and samples of the new patterns Loudoun shawl and Squared up cardigan.
avocado dye experiments: just 6 skeins each of 4 batches: avocado pits (Border Leicester and Tunis, these are the pinker colors) and avocado skins (also Border Leicester and Tunis, the more apricot color). I'm pretty sure this will be the only time we will have these available...when the 24 skeins are gone, that is it. They are lovely soft colors that took two years of us collecting (no hardship there...) and two weeks or more to dye (a considerable amount of work 😁🤪).
All these yarns will be unavailable on the website from sometime about now...until we unpack our baby box truck when we get back.
]]>Get all the details of where/when here.
We are in the Ruritan building at the front (booths 10/11)
What we will have at the booth (which I am so sorry to say means it won’t be available on the website until next Tuesday after the festival):
possibly others that we throw on the truck...
I will try to add more info here this week too.
]]>maybe by next year (the 50th Anniversary of Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival!!!) I can get others into this? What rhymes with "cambric shirt (in the deep forest green)"?
Thoughts/hints for the weekend:
Check out the fair schedule and other info ahead of time. This festival is overwhelmingly wonderful. Make a plan! Do buy your tickets ahead of time.
Do go visit sheep! walk the barns, watch a sheep show, see the breeds display...they are all around!
Wear waterproof shoes/raincoat...it sounds like it's going to be wet
Visit the Chesapeake Fibershed table in the new Exhibition Hall Annex
Go see the sheep to shawl competition!
Check out the fleece show and sale (Solitude Wool is a sponsor 😁)
Watch the sheep shearing demonstration (outside East lawn of the Main Exhibition Hall, all weekend)
AND come see us!:
Main Exhibition Hall D16 & D17 (double booth, woo hoo!)
show specials:
* excluding cashmere. one discount per order, whatever is highest)
We are bringing:
see you there!!!!!
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update early Monday morning: What a festival! We are amazed at what a virtual experience it was (we are exhausted just like we always after it’s over). Thank you to everyone who came, commented on the videos and shopped! Our hearts swell at your support and the good wishes we felt from so many this weekend.
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Did you delete May 2nd and 3rd, Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival from your calendar? I did with great sadness...but I'm adding it back in! The Festival is going virtual and we are ever so pleased to be back in preparation for it. The virtual festival will be hosted in a new “Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival Online Community” Facebook group and other social media platforms.
We will offer free shipping and a 10% discount during the full weekend of the festival.
part of our 2019 Maryland booth: we are Shave 'Em to Save 'Em official providers
The good news is that EVERYTHING we have is available here on our online shop. No running to the truck to see if we have those two other matching skeins to complete your project and no wifi issues in the Main Exhibition hall... Inventory available is listed and everything is in stock and available online.
One of the great things about meeting you at shows is the chance to find out what you like and the projects you have in mind and being able to personally recommend a breed and spin structure that can delight you. Throughout the weekend I will highlight different yarns from our warehouse, giving you virtual touching and smooshing opportunities. Debbie will be filling orders as they come in and all us Woolies (me, Kathy and Kim) will be monitoring the festival through our Facebook, Ravelry and Instagram feeds to answer any questions you might have.
If you want a preview of some of our yarns and experience our festival booth with two outside experts that ask really good questions, check out KristyGlass’s tour of our 2019 Rhinebeck booth (we have all the same stuff!) and the Fruity Knitting segment on Solitude Wool
For some amateur video...we are going to do some live videos during the festival. Here is our plan...we may embarrass ourselves, but this seems like a good time for that.
Saturday:
9:30 am intro and brief tour of warehouse
10:30 am distanced now, Ktog soon exclusive
11:30 am Romney semi-worsted
2:30 pm Shave ‘em to Save ‘em program/yarns
3:30 pm Roving
Sunday:
9:30 am Montadale true woolen spun
10:30 am distanced now, Ktog soon exclusive
11:30 am Coopworth sport and lace
2:30 pm intro and brief tour of warehouse (with Jessica?)
3:30 pm Targhee 2 and Targhee 3
We have never done a special colorway for a specific festival before, but we never experienced a pandemic before either. Social distancing is weird and feeling weirder every day! Trying to capture the experience in a skein of yarn, we offer "distanced now, Ktog soon" a skein (or two) with two colors that are dyed as far apart as they can be. Knit with them (or crochet...), and the colors stitch together (we will be back together eventually!).
Each skein (or skeins) is a custom order to be dyed post festival. Work with me (by email or phone) to pick your two colors and select either undyed or color background. I will try to come close to what is in your mind’s eye colorwise, but leave me some artistic wiggle room okay?
Missing someone that you want to connect with through knitting? Maybe a color that represents you and one that represents them, or the common colors you both love.... Whatever the concept, you will have the pleasure of thinking of them as you knit. And wouldn't it be nice to send a gift to that person now? What a fun, uplifting surprise to receive during our imposed solitude. Get a skein for yourself and another for your special friend and each of you knit something? Get one skein and knit a gift for a non-knitting friend. Many possibilities....
Final details revealed on Friday May 1st in the product details.
Kathy picked gray and rusty orange...she got a mustard gold with her gray...
Sue picked light colors, blue and green (she got blue and aqua...)
and then there is Jessica.....
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