Happy Holidays, Friends.
The year is quickly coming to a close and it's time for the shop to break for end of the year books and holiday family visits. I’d like to thank everyone for their trust and support this year, we can’t do it without you. As I reflect on the year, I have so many fond memories and I’m excited for next year, oh the plans.
This year the shop will close on December 10, 2024, at 12:01 am EST and our last day to ship a box will be December 15, 2024. We are closing until the new year to finalize our books and do inventory and supply ordering for next year. The shop will reopen on January 1, 2025, at 12:01 am EST.
Looking Back on 2024
Well, 2024 started with a bang, in January Daedalus along with teacher, Debbie Held, went to Savannah College of Art and Design (My alma mater, class of 2000) to demo and drop off some wheels for the Fiber Department. They are now the proud owners of a Magpie, a Martin, and a Falcon. It was so much fun spending the day with the faculty and students in Savannah, they are an amazing, creative, and ingenuitive bunch.
Early this year we began working with the talented Brian Holmen to develop a new line of bobbins for both the Sparrow and the Martin. Brian worked with Dave to learn the ins and outs of bobbin production before opening FiberFox Workshop in February. He now offers bobbins using the same filament and colors as Daedalus, but with new and interesting patterns. He also sources aluminum brake whorls from our company, so your FiberFox bobbins will be based on the same engineering principles that you’ve come to love from Daedalus.
Also this year we added a couple of festivals to the list. We returned to Maryland and Rhinebeck, those shows are so great. In the Rhinebeck booth, we had some guests this year, and at Maryland Sheep and Wool we were lucky enough to be moved to the Expo hall. This afforded us more room for demoing wheels. We added HGA’s Retreat Convergence and we returned to The Michigan Fiber Fest in Allegan, we last attended MFF in 2019. As I always say, we love going to festivals. The visits from old friends and long-time patrons, as well as all the new people we meet make the time spent on the road worth every minute.
In 2024 David worked long hours to develop two new flyers and reimagine a third, adding versatility to our lineup. First, he designed the Starling Lace flyer, an adaptation of the precision flyer used on the Falcon. This baby pushes the speed of the Starling up to 3000 rpm allowing for smooth spinning of short stapled fibers such as cotton, camel, and yak. We debuted the Lace flyer at Maryland this year. While working on this project, a member of the flock pointed out that Starling would really benefit from an Art flyer as well, after some thought he began to design. By the time Rhinebeck rolled around in October he was ready to release not just the new Starling Art Flyer, but also a redesigned Magpie Art Flyer.
In June we reopened the Falcon queue. This is a very specialized wheel so we don’t get too many orders for them. The queue for them is quite short but we only build them a couple times a year.
What's in Store for 2024?
In 2025 Daedalus has plans to expand further into the rabbit hole that is the world of fiber arts. We have three new projects on the horizon, no teasers yet, but I know you are all going to go crazy for these Daedalus Designs.
We are adding one new festival for sure (KY) but are applying to two others (ESTES & WISC), and scouting a fourth (BSG).
This coming year we hope to fulfill our magpie queue and thus be able to offer this model more freely in shop updates. The falcon queue remains open, however be aware we only build these wheels two times a year as they are a niche item.
We are also happy to announce that due to an increase in production we have shortened the Starling queue wait time to approximately 6 months. Sparrows, Martins, Roly-Poly, and Whirligig will remain being offered in updates every 2-3 months.
Production Schedule
January
Building Magpies for the Queue
Building Wheels for MDSW
February
Roly-Poly & Whirligig Update
Building Wheels for MDSW
March
Building Starlings for the Queue
Building Wheels for KYSFF
Where to Find Daedalus?
May 3rd-4th, 2025 - We will be vending at Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. Howard County Fairgrounds, West Friendship, Maryland. Expo Building C31 & C32.
May 17th-18th, 2025 - We will be vending/sponsoring at Kentucky Sheep & Fiber Festival. Masterson Station Park Lexington, Kentucky.
August 15th-17th, 2025 - We will be vending at Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan Michigan. Expo hall on the north side in booth 363/364.
October 18th-19th, 2025 - We will be vending at New York Sheep & Wool Festival. Dutchess County Fairgrounds, Rhinebeck, New York. Barn 36 Booth 18.
Activity from the Flock
The following is a peek into the wonderful creations by our flock. When posting to social media please make sure to tag us @DaedalusSpinningWheels and #daedalusspinningwheels so we can see what you are working on.
Charan Sachar and Suzy Brown helped us with Starling Art Flyer testing. The yarns they created with their Starlings are incredible! Suzy has spun up a whole bushel of yarns with her Starling. She wrote a review of the new flyer in the latest issue of tinyStudio Creative Life Magazine.
Charan helped us with testing both the Starling Art Flyer and the new Magpie V2 Pro Art Flyer which was updated to use the latest designs from the Starling Art Flyer.
Evanita took the Starling Art Flyer prototype to Black Sheep Gathering for Cathleen Fry to use in Charan's Corespinning class. Char "Owlspun" also got to play with the flyer.
Vampy has been having a lot of fun with the new Magpie Art Flyer. Isn't that rainbow spin across the Magpie bobbin amazing?!
Emily Witte and Amber Lucsay are always a constant source of community inspiration. They have nurtured quite the flock of spinners in Wisconsin. We highly recommend following these two on Instagram to see all of the fun shenanigans and prolific creativity their flock is up to. To see more fibery shenanigans check out Emily and Amber's IG accounts.
It's always a joy to see birds of a feather flock together. If you have a flock of friends who spin together we'd love to see!
It's inspiring to see all of the handspun made with our wheels on social media. We are also seeing a lot of gorgeous indie-dyed yarn popping up on our feed now, thanks to the Roly-Poly and Whirligig! One of our favorite sources of Roly-Poly eye candy is the Blue Brick. She fondly calls her Roly-Poly balls dragon eggs. The Roly-Poly displays her yarns so beautifully.
At Rhinebeck, Thomas Victor scored a Roly-Poly and Whirligig. He is such an incredible spinner and weaver. Here we get a quick view of his studio, massive loom, and whirligig in the wild.
We love getting to see when members of the flock get awards for their hard work. Entering your handspun yarns into fairs and festivals is a great way to get unbiased feedback to help you grow and learn. Here are some entries by Cathleen and Char. If you enter your Daedalus spun yarn into the fair let us know.
One of the many wonderful perks of electric spinning wheels is how easily they are to travel with. Margalit Fox (Journalist, Author, Lecturer) has been enjoying taking her Daedalus Martin on her book tour to spin on her downtime. It fills us with joy knowing that her Martin plays such a vital part of her downtime while she's on tour. She's currently on tour for her latest book "The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum: The Rise and Fall of an American Organized Crime Boss"
"For inquiring minds that want to know, it's a Daedalus Martin, a wonderful travel spinning wheel-in-a-box, with which I plan to spin my way across my entire book tour. And to my delight, the TSA didn't even raise an eyebrow." - Margalit Fox
Join Our Online Flock
Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/239274393420200
Discord Server - https://discord.gg/Y2uUfDsZhQ
Ravelry Group - https://www.ravelry.com/groups/daedalus-spinning-wheels?s=tab
Saturday Night Zoom Spin In
The Daedalus Saturday Zoom Spin In takes place every Saturday at 7 pm Eastern (EST) and usually runs at least a few hours. All spinners are welcome no matter what spinning device you own and we aren't always spinning so even if you are knitting, crocheting, weaving, etc come craft with us!
Id 803 600 7502 Passcode 197552
- Team Daedalus
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