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Spring on Nash Island
Spring, also known as 'mud season' in Maine brings a remarkable regeneration at Swans Island.  We are getting the Northport pasture ready for spring lambs, our weavers and dyers are busily preparing for summer visitors, and we are anticipating our annual June Shearing Day pilgrimage to Nash Island.  We will participate in a centuries-old tradition rounding up the flock that lives on the island, culling lambs, and shearing the wool that will become our winter blankets.  We will select about 400 pounds of lanolin-soaked virgin wool, sew it into 7 foot long burlap bags, and transport it on Richard Alley's lobster boat back to the town landing in Addison, Maine.  This year we are traveling with four journalists from the Japanese magazine Kunel, who are writing an article for this summer.  The boat returns about sundown with the children by now exhausted, resting on the wool bags, and the adults catching one last look at the islands in the bay, until next Spring.   

Swans Island in Coastal Living
If you are receiving this newsletter you are probably a friend and customer of Swans Island.  It is thus likely you appreciate that we not only create beautiful handmade woven products, but maintain an art that was once common in America but is now exceedingly rare.  So you may be happy to know that this art form that we all value is recognized by such a venerable and respected publication as Coastal Living.  Please pick up a copy of the May edition where we are featured in a well-written piece accompanied by some great photos, and let us know what you think.

In New Orleans
In the long aftermath of Hurricane Katrina innovative seeds are sprouting.  Our friends at Domino Magazine recently invited us to participate together with many others (including Brad Pitt) in the construction and decoration of the model home of the Holy Cross project, an all-Green eco-friendly community being built in New Orleans.  We donated five blankets to a wonderful undertaking that will provide housing to victims of Katrina and serve as an example of how design and construction can work for both people and the planet.

Visit Us
If you have any plans to visit Maine this year, please include us in your itinerary.  On the way up you could stop in Freeport to visit the Thos Moser store where our blankets are on display, or even stay at the Harraseeket Inn's new Moser-furnished suite, where you can sleep under a beautiful Swans Island blanket.