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

Naming Contest!

Ok, I have gone a little Alpaca crazy over the last few days. It really is his fault, he is just too cute.
Our Contest!
Send us an email, or send us a Convo through ETSY with your suggestion for our Alpacas new name. The name must start with the letter Z.
This little guy is 3 years old and is a Gelded Male. He is very friendly and comes right up to us when we head out to do chores.
The Contest ends May 3rd.
May 4th I will draw a name from a hat or random number generator and the winner will receive......

3 Dragon Eggs
The fiber batts will be made from this springs fleece with the newly named alpaca's tan wool, Yoshi's Lamma Fibers
and

Salty's (Lincoln Longwool) curly locks.

All the fibers will be natural in color, and should felt nicely. I may even post pictures of the shearing and carding process.

So chime in and send us a Z name!
Happy Spinning!
Loretta

New Friends!

This is our new Alpaca friend. He came with the name Calvin, but we are currently in the process of picking out a "Z" name for him. Calvin is a 3 year old gelding who loves spending time with Yoshi. If you have an Idea for his new name please send us a note!

I am hoping that we will be able to shave our new friend this weekend. Yoshi and Salty need to a hair cut too! Our current thoughts on a name are Zorro, Zander, Zelda and a few others Sam has been tossing around.

For the past few months I have been concentrating on School things with Sam and getting ready for the Iowa Federation Spin in. We made about 200 dragon Eggs and around 80 spindles to display and have up for sale. I am happy to report that the Spin in did very well, and now I have over 60 spindles to list in the Etsy Shop.

Our April Fiber of the month of is Spearmint and the May fiber is Thin Mints or Chocolate Frog (for the Harry Potter Fans). I love sparkles in my fibers but I realize that not everybody does so I am going to try to make up 2 months of fiber at a time, 1 with sparkle and 1 without.

Spearmint is a blend of Merino, Superwash Merino, Mill Ends, Bamboo, Firestar, angelina and nylon.

Thin Mints or Chocolate Frog is a blend of Merino, Superwash Merino, Iowa Wool, mill ends, bamboo and Nylon.
The green fibers are the same the difference is the white or chocolate fibers and of course the sparkle. Both colors may or may not felt, I have been meaning to try but just haven't found the time to knit something up.
If they sell out before the month is over I have lots of dragon eggs waiting in the wings for their turn to shine.
Watch for more spindles and fibers to be listed on Etsy.
Happy Spinning!
Loretta

Febuary Fibers

Our February Fiber of the month is a little girls dream. It reminds me of cotton candy and barbie dolls.

In this magical blend of fibers has SuperWash merino, Ingeo, Bamboo, Firestar, and Angelina.

I have been really behind this month due to family stuff and way too many hours clearing snow from the driveway and sidewalk.

So I wanted to give all of our followers a
special peek at the spindles that are waiting to be listed.
Each spindle has been labeled with the weight, diameter of the whorl, if it has been notched, tested, and what type of hook is on the shaft. If you fall in love with a spindle and would like me to list it as a reserve for you just send me an email and I get it listed right away. There are also spindles that are not up to my standards pictured that will be listed on Monday mornings in the oops category. The imperfect spindles have an additional note describing what is wrong with them. My collection of imperfect spindles is just getting a little too large, and Kim needs more money for textbooks.
I hope that March will come in like a lamb and be a very calm month.
Happy Spinning!
Loretta

Happy Distaff Day!

Anticipation of Spring our January Fiber Blend

The purple violets that spring up in our yard as soon as the snow melts inspire this fiber blend. I wanted to give the impression that all the beautiful flowers were just underneath a layer of snow, just waiting to dazzle us with all their glory.

Kim's thoughts were of all the spring fairies just waiting under the snow, counting the days until they could start spreading all the spring colors.
Anticipation Dragon Eggs are a blend of super-wash merino, merino mill ends, soy silk, bamboo and angelina.

New for 2010
After 2 years of searching we have found a new material for spindle hooks. My husband and I are very particular, we have been looking for a metal that was strong and flexible, but would hold it's shape well and a material that would hold up to the abuse that I put all my spindles to. I have to admit I am very hard on spindles, I tend to drop them on lots of different surfaces.
We should have spindles with the new hooks up sometime Sunday.
Look for spindles with 2010 in the description.

Enjoy Distaff Day January 7th.

New Fibers

Wow, what a week Dragon Craft has had!
We only have one Deep Water Dragon Batt left, so here are the October Batts!


Our garden is just buzzing with bees.

Inspired by all the bees, is a roving filled with lots of merino mill ends for texture, more merino, and bamboo. Of course bees have just a little shimmer to them so we added just a little firestar in black and orange. These batts all have super-wash merino and will not felt.

If you don't like bees....

This blend is inspired by fall leaves.
I may have been a little heavy handed on the orange.
The fibers used in the fall leaves blend are merino, superwash merino, soy silk, brown merino, and orange firestar for just a little shimmer. These batts may or may not felt.
If you are purchasing a spindle from DragonCraft.etsy.com make sure and let us know what color you would prefer.


Also I wanted to thank Nadiah for her fabulous YouTube video.
Thanks so much!

Happy Spinning!

September Fiber

The September fiber of the month is.....

A fantastic blend of Superwash Merino, Lincoln Longwool (from our little farm), corn silk (ingeo), mill ends and firestar.

All of our spindles are sent with roving please be sure to let me know if you would prefer a Dragon Egg (batt). The batts are carded on my Louette Roving Carder and measure 4 x 26 inches.

This is a sample skein of the September fiber, it is a 2 ply and measured 36 yards.

Labor Day weekend I did an educational display in Dundas, Mn. I brought my Ashford and spun from 8 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon. So I thought I would share the photos with you.
The white skein is a 2 ply merino cashmere blend ( a splurge), the first pink is merino 4-ply, the second pink is a 2 ply bamboo merino blend, the 3rd and 4th pink skeins are 2 ply merino roving that was spaced dyed. They are super loud colors, I brought this roving to spin because children really like bright colors and they are really interested in watching the colors change on the bobbin.

Until next time,
Happy Spinning!

What a week!

Our newest batch of spindles.
They just need hooks and then we will start listing them on ETSY.
My Favorite is the Spiders.

I have gone granny square crazy.
This is my latest project, however I had to order more yarn from JoAnn.com. So off it goes to await the new shipment. Right now it is 3 feet square, I am hoping it will be a good size throw when it is finished.
It is made from Loin Brand Wool Yarn and my greatest fear is that my husband will throw it in the wash and it will end up a rug.

Last weeks project has stalled.
After using up all of my scraps of handspun I selected several squares to make a tote. I have stiched them together and they are waiting to have the ends woven in and the lining sewed together. I just can not decide on a handle.

I can not belive how fast the month goes by. Next week I should have the July blend started.
With any luck I will have the Granny Square tote finished.
Happy Spinning!
Loretta

June Fiber of the Month

June Fiber of the Month!

This color is sky blue. I bet you can tell I have been spending hours in the garden.

The fibers in the June blend include; Merino, SW merino, soy silk, Pygora, Firestar and Angelina

Here is a batt, hand pulled Roving and a sample skein.

This is a granny square made from the Sample skein.

It never fails, as soon as you set out a project help arrives to "help."
This is Raj, he always ends up in the middle.

For the last few months I have been looking for something to do with all the sample skeins I have spun. Most of them are around 30 yards long, but I always have little bits and pieces that I don’t have the heart to toss. I have finally come up with a solution, Granny Squares. So I purchased several pounds of a black merino bamboo blend and have been spinning up a storm. Last week I spun up several 4 ounce skeins. I now have 30 or so 4.5 inch squares. So now I have to decide what to do with them. I have been toying with the Idea of a tote bag or purse. However the traditional blanket is still creeping its way into my thoughts. To make a decent size blanket I would need 196 squares. Choices.

Happy Spinning!

May Fiber

Our May Fiber of the month is inspired by my Great Grandmother's love of roses. Lots of different shades of pink and red remind me of her.

After making a batt I like to make sure it will look good as roving and yarn before I make a whole batch.

The silk worm saga continues. I have over 400 cocoons now and still have a few stragglers that I am still feeding everyday. I should have moths emerging soon.

This week I am hoping to get a few things into the garden. My new Jersey Wolly rabbits are hoping I will plant them carrots.
Happy Spinning! Loretta