Canada

I just wanted to send a quick notice about the Canada Postal Strike.
First to all of our Canadian fans,
I hope that this issue resolves quickly. I know how important getting the mail on time every day is to most of us.
I have changed our shipping options on our ETSY store to not have Canadian Shipping for right now.
If are from Canada please send me a convo or email and I will either hold a spindle for you or find out how much it would cost to ship with UPS. Your choice.

I will try to keep up with the developments and will go back to our usual shipping methods as soon as the postal strike has been resolved.
Until then this is what Bloomberg.com has to say.

May Flowers spin pretty yarns.

I just had to share these pictures I took yesterday.

These pictures were taken at sunset, so I am calling this spindle Evening Run.
Kim is all moved into her apartment, and starting to settle in.
She has even requested her tiger lilies for the little garden.

Now that we are finished with our spring shows I am trying to get all the spindles photographed so I can start listing them.
And I did start a spoiler album for my fans.
I better go, the silkworms are calling!
Have a great week!
Loretta

Silkworms and Mulberry Leaves!

Boy has it been a busy spring.

It was fun to go to Shepherds Harvest Festival in Lake Elmo,Mn. Now I just need to go through all the boxes and get them sorted and back into the studio ;-)

These little Silkworms just hatched this morning, and they are the first silkworms of the season to have fresh tasty baby Mulberry leaves right off the trees.
These babies were taken out of Hibernation on April 30th, for our Iowa City Show.

These are some of our first moths of 2011 and freshly laid eggs. In the next day or so they should turn gray and then I will stick them in the fridge for at least 3 weeks.
I am guessing they will be in the fridge all winter because I have at least 400 reverse zebra silkworms getting ready to hatch in the next few days as well.
Someone should call me crazy, because I think I might be.

I will be taking pictures of lots of spindles to list over the next few months later this week.
And Dragon Eggs too!
Today Kim moves into her new ISU apartment, and I get to help.
At least it will be the last move until she graduates.
I better get going.
Happy May!
Loretta

Roc Day Sale!

Roc Day Sale!
What is Roc Day?

From Wikipedia

Distaff Day, also called Roc Day, is 7 January, the day after the feast of the Epiphany. It is also known as Saint Distaff's Day, since it was not really a holiday at all. In many European cultural traditions, women resumed their household work after the twelve days of Christmas. The distaff, or rock, used in spinning was the medieval symbol of women's work. Often the men and women would play pranks on each other during this day, as was written by Robert Herrick in his poem "Saint Distaffs day, or the Morrow After Twelfth Day" which appears in his Hesperides

We are celebrating Roc Day with 15% off all orders through midnight Jan 7th.
Just use coupon Code 01072011

Our January fiber of the month is a natural colored fiber blend of Romney, Beast, SW merino mill ends, Cashmere and Nylon. This blend may felt, but it may not. I think this blend would be great fun to dye after spinning for a nice variegated or heathered yarn.

Dying for more sparkle in you fibers, just send me a convo and I will add white firestar to the blend so if you choose to dye the fiber everything will dye with wool dyes. The firestar will be a darker and shiny flash of color throughout your handspun yarn.

Have a Great Roc Day!
Loretta

Spoiler Alert!

First Things first I guess.
The color of December is Plum!
These batts are a Feltable blend of Merino, Romney, Iowa Wool,Firestar, Angelina and Soy.

And then just for all the New Year Resolution People.
Plum Light!
These batts will also felt nicely.
Plum Light batts are also made of Merino, Romney, Iowa Wool, Firestar, Angelina and Soy.
I actually just take a plum batt and split it in half and then add more white merino before I re-card the batt.

Here is what you all have been waiting for the Spoilers!!
Many of you know that I take pictures only when it is sunny, so yesterday I took Lots of pictures of spindles that I hope to list in December(400+ pictures).
I also added a folder of the oops and sale spindles I hope to list soon.

I hope to add short descriptions to the spindles in the folders today or tomorrow.
If you see a spindle that you want I will make a custom listing of that spindle for you before anyone else has the chance to see it. Just let me know by sending me an email at lorettaspins@gmail.com
or send me a convo through etsy.
Happy Spinning!

Before Christmas Sale

Happy Holidays!
This holiday season we are going to be listing several Goodie Bundles. I also will be listing several spindles on Sale in the next week.

The fiber that arrives with each spindle will be a random selection of what we have in our stash. However if you would prefer a certain color please let us know.

From Today until December 31, 2010
We are very interested in having our spindles in more spinning and yarn shops so we are having a wholesale promotion!
From today until the end of the year we are lowering our wholesale price and your first wholesale order only needs to include 5 spindles.
If you are interested in purchasing spindles for resale or for a class send us an email at
lorettaspins@gmail.com
We will send you a copy of our contract and special intro prices.

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone for being so understanding this fall. I was able to spend lots of quality time with my grandmother before she passed away last week. I miss her terribly but I am also happy that she is no longer in any pain. I hope that she was reunited with the friends, family and beloved pets that she was longing to see.

I will post again soon,
Loretta

Shearing Day

Our Shy Guy is hiding that he has a partial hair Cut.

Here he is showing us what his hair cut looks like so far.

This is the fleece from side one laid out so I can remove the second cuts.

Yoshi is waiting patiently for her turn.

Here we have more fleece to be checked before storing it.

This little guy is sure hoping you will remember what he looks like with fur when you enter the naming contest.
He has a beautiful fleece I can't wait to card up.
After he was done with his hair cut and pedicure he had a big helping of sweet feed while Yoshi and Salty had a hair cut.
Yoshi was not happy about parting with her beautiful locks.
Rich, Sam and I all got Llama Showers.
Salty was very dignified and it was nice to end on a positive note.
Then we all took hot water showers with lots of Soap!

Please send in your "Z" name and enter our naming contest.
The newest entries suggested,
ZuZu, Zeus, Zack and Zinc.
The winner will be chosen randomly from all the entries, so go ahead and send us your suggestion.
Happy Spinning!
Loretta