At the last minute, without participating in any groups, I decided to join in with Tour de Fleece 2014 with the simple goal of spinning every day through out the race. No pressure. If I so much as spin for 5 minutes, I’m counting that as a day I participated!
Day 1, 2 & 3:
I was about to finish of a braid of 100% merino that I have had in my fibre stash for 5+ years: FreckleFaceFibers in Frankincense. The Etsy shop no longer exists and I can’t find any blog or information associated with her on the internet expect old fibre photos on places like Flickr which is a shame because her colours were beautiful and understated – my favourite!
In the end, I have 110 grams and 348 yards in a 2-ply. I have experimenting with high twist singles and plying. In the end, I could have actually added even more twist. I am amazed at how much twist merino will take – that’s fine wool for you, though! I am going to try another high twist experiment with another braid of merino that has been in my stash since 2010. Hopefully I can get to it before the end of the Tour!
Day 4, 5, 6 & 7:
For the remainder of the week, I worked on two projects and prepped a third.
The first one is for the Sweet Georgia Yarn Summer of Socks SAL/KAL that started on July 1st. I am spinning up some Sweet Georgia Fibre in BFL+Silk in colourway Rusted. I have the first 2 bobbins finished and I am hoping I can start the third tomorrow. I am going to do a traditional 3-ply. I have no idea if I’ll have enough yardage. And I have no idea which sock pattern I am going to make … so I’ll keep you posted!
The second project involved something very exciting: I bought a drop spindle! It goes like stink! It is made from canary wood – absolutely gorgeous. It is handmade by a local wood turner and it is just lovely. I have tried spindles before and walked away wondering what the big deal is … now I know! I am so glad I have my wheel but I am already learning so much more about spinning from practicing on this beauty. And yes, it comes with it’s very own scotch container that has been covered with lovely paper! Cool idea, huh?!
I am so excited about spindling for two reasons:
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I can now take my spinning with me when we go away, and
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The portability of it means I can spin outside in the yard while James is playing!
To practice, I am working on a stashed and quite old Sweet Georgia Panda that I have had forever. I did a bracelet ply (some people call this Andean plying but there are several techniques that are called Andean plying, all different, so to keep myself straight, I call it bracelet plying) and ended up with a small skein of really perfect 2-ply. What a wonderful lesson for me on twist!
Lastly, I had another spinning lesson this week and we played with my new favourite thing (aside from my drop spindle!): A drum carder. Ooh, I loved playing with this – I could really get into making my own batts and spinning from them. We had played prior to this with hand cards and made some little rolags. Using the same stashed fibre (because I have a lot!), we added firestar and soffsilk to the batts. It made them really interesting and I’m excited to see what more than just a little test skein will spin up like!
Are you participating in Tour de Fleece? How is it going? It is really fun to look at everyone’s photos in the various Ravelry groups. People are spinning up an incredible amount of fibre! I hope you are well and happy spinning :)
Lovely to see all these yarns that people are spinning for the TDF. Yours is gorgeous. All those colours…
Thank you! I totally agree – I love seeing everyone’s work :)