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Summer 2008

Shearing Day 2008
Each spring we meet up in June at the public landing in Addison, Maine with Eleni and Alfie Wakeman and chug out on a lobster boat to Nash Island for shearing day. There has been a hardy flock kept by lighthouse families there for 200 years, and you can’t help feeling part of a worthy tradition as the sheep are rounded up and shorn. This year the weather cooperated and we arrived with a group of four journalists fresh from Tokyo, on assignment from a Japanese magazine called Ku:nel (which apparently means Food:Sleep). Everyone was satisfied with a good day’s work. Eleni and Alfie counted 94 lambs born, one of which was black (rare wool really is rare). We left with 420 pounds of beautiful fleeces sewn into four massive burlap sacks, enough for another year’s supply of Swans Island winter blankets. And our new friends from Tokyo were so impressed that they are doing a big story just on Nash Island shearing day for the July issue, and a second story on Swans Island in September.

New Spring Green Certified Organic Merino Throws
We had seen a green during the spring that we knew would be a great throw color if it could be replicated. But after several frustrating tries with our in house dyes, we were wondering whether it was achievable. We decided to try a new dye source; the weld plant grown organically in the Pacific Northwest. We dyed white merino in a mixture of the stalk and flower, producing an intense yellow. Immediately after, we dipped the yarn into our organic indigo for a few seconds. A great deal of experimentation finally yielded just what we seeking: the green we had observed in the fields around our studio this spring. Now we are weaving a nicely variegated spring green merino throw that is expected to be a real heirloom. And we have since learned that weld (Reseda Luteola) is the oldest European dye plant in the world, used by Vermeer in his Girl with a Pearl Earring.

A New Swans Island Book
Many of our customers have told us how much they appreciate that each purchase includes a copy of our Swans Island book. We are producing an updated version of the book for this fall with new photos and swatches of our traditional and new colors. Our first book included a great essay by our friend Bruce Snider. The new edition will feature a shorter essay by Curtis Rindlaub, a Maine writer who did the text for an article about us in the May issue of Coastal Living.  Curtis is the author of A Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast and we were pleased that he was willing to contribute this piece. Look for our new book in September and please come visit us in Northport this summer.


Past Newsletters
Spring 2008