Starcroft Mill Monday

         FOG ready on the spinner. 

         Let the bobbin filling begin. 

      ...and at the other end of the mill... 

For the past several years we have been working on improving the breeding on one of the islands to produce natural colored fleeces. Last year was our first clip of beautiful dark brown fleeces.  I just finished skirting all the fleeces and washing will commence this week in preparation for a NEW yarn in the works for release early this summer!

Out of the Woods

When my dear friend Gale (pictured here with her friend Cleat) e-mailed me a few months ago with an offer to do a pop-up store in New York City in January, my imagination mind immediately thought, 'Yes!  That sounds like a lot of fun!'.  Then my introvert mind thought, 'Oh, my, NYC is so far away...and there are so many people there' (I live almost in Canada, in the woods, and there are 428 people in my town). My logical mind thought, 'You don't have any yarn made'. And my optimistic mind thought,'But you have lots of wool and a month or so to make some'. A hefty debate ensued.

 In the end, optimism and imagination won!

So the house building was put on hold (again) and holiday handcrafting Santa took a sabbatical. 

Machines have been humming. 

Dye pots have been bubbling. 

And the yarn has been piling up. 

I am very excited to be headed out of the woods next week to bring a bit of my corner of Maine to NYC. 

Starcroft will be popping-up at lf8elevate on East 7th Street, NYC, January 13-18. 

Doesn't that sound like a lot of fun? 

ON THE MOVE

Spring has arrived early in Maine!  The critters are out & about & on the move after a long winter's hibernation.  While they slumbered away winter's intrepid weather, our hibernation was a busy den bound winter of sorting through 35 years accumulation of flotsam and jetsam and packing it up into boxes.  This spring we are on the move as well.  Headed due east, closer to dear friends, an island, and some sheep.

I'm hoping you will forgive my lack of attention and lend some patience as we pack up lock, stock, and mill and move to our new home.  We'll take a bit of a breather to settle in and enjoy some island lambing time.   And then we'll have those machines up and humming again just in time for this year's new wool clip!

P.S.  our new address is:   9 Farnsworth Road    Columbia, ME  04623

The Sweat Shop

As lovely and super summery as it's been the past couple weeks, I'm sure you can imagine what nearly 90 degree heat and 90% humidity feel like when one is trying to make yarn... AWESOME.

We like to practice a Spanish workday when it gets this hot: Siesta from 2-4pm. It is much easier to make yarn at 7am and 7pm on days like this. But we're so happy that our new Fog Yarn has been flying off the shelves at Spruce & Gussy and Purl Diva, that we don't mind sweating to keep up with popular demand.

We'd hate to leave you with nothing to knit at the beach this week!