Start of Tour de Fleece 2015

Tour de Fleece started on July 4th this year, and my goals for it are modest --- finish up some Spinning WIPS (SWIPS?) that have been languishing on bobbins.

For starters, I had 4oz lovely Alpaca Silk from Abstract Fibers. I had spun up a single ounce on my Ashford Kiwi, but never got back to it.

 

I spun up all four ounces -- one per storage bobbin. I spun the singles as worsted weight at about 24 WPI.

Then made a lovely 4 ply that measures a heavy worsted weight.

Now, I need to dive back into my Fiber Stash and see what next project needs to be spun!

Final TDF 2013

Sorry that I haven't been posting. I have my Eldest Niece this whole week, and we've been busy doing auntie and niece type things!

But, I took a couple of quick (crappy) shots of my final skein of the 3-2 cable for the tour de fleece 2013.

The final skein is about 8 WPI instead of the 6 WPI I had estimated, but it's close enough. It's about 217 yards @ 5 ounces. There's an assorted 1 ounce spread over  a couple of bobbins that I still need to finish plying, but my plying bobbin was full.

Tour de Fleece 2013: Finished!

My goals for Tour de Fleece 2013 were fairly simple, because I knew that I'd be travelling for a few conventions and other events during the 20-something days of the tour.  Consequently, I decided to do a "simple" 3-2 braid yarn

I had a white merino hogget fleece that I wanted to play with during the tour; his name was Odie. My plan was only to spin up 6 ounces for this 3-2 braid.

Here are two of the singles in quills, where each single is ~ 36 WPI. These singles were true woolen spun on my Traddy. They are "loosely" spun singles -- and in fact, I could be heard swearing up a storm on a fairly regular basis.

All 6 quills were then 2-plied into 3 separate bobbins, which are very overspun (because I'm going to be plying them again). The resulting 2-ply yarn is about ~18 WPI.

All of these singles & 2plies led to a HUGE bobbin of a 3-2 cable ply, which according to calculations, should be approximately 6 WPI, which is going to give me a slightly bulky yarn once I full the resulting skein.

I needed to finish up early for the Tour de Fleece, because we were going to be away (again) for the last few days of the Tour. I don't have time to completely finish up the skein, so pictures of the completed skein will have to wait until my return.

Next year, I'm going to work with a bit more color. It's hard to post progress photos of a WHITE fleece being spun into yarn. It's not very exciting.

TDF: Heat Wave

Here's the weather forecast for our area for this week.

And with 60-80% humidity. UGH.

I'm not wholly sure how much I'm going to get spun for Tour-de-Fleece with the heat being this bad. I'm having to wait until the house cools down enough in the evening to even contemplate holding wool.

We don't have air conditioning in the house, but relying on fans, cross-ventilation, and cool evening breezes.

However, I am persevering, albeit slowly.

TDF 2013: And they're off!

If you're a spinner, you're probably well aware that the Tour de Fleece started on Saturday.

If you're not a spinner AND haven't been following my blog, then you probably don't know WTH I'm talking about. But, basically, it boils down to this...

During the whole time of the Tour de France, spinners all over the world are getting on their spinning wheels (and drop spindles), and spinning while the bicyclists ride. Why spinning? Because spinning wheels have, well, wheels, and bikes have wells. Ergo, Tour De Fleece.

Each spinner picks a "goal" for the whole tour. It can be something as simple as spinning and watching the race, spinning 10 minutes a day, or maybe spin a pound of fiber. The tour de fleece is meant as a challenge.

This year, I'm spinning part of a hogget merino fleece into a nice 3-2 cabled yarn. My primary goal is to spin 6 ounces and get it plied. My secondary goal is to spin 12 ounces into singles.

   

My plan? Spin 72 WPI singles, that will then be plied into a 36 WPI 2-ply, which then ply the 2ply into a 3-ply cabled yarn. (It's a lot of plying!)

The race started on Saturday, but on that weekend, we had a veritable heatwave. The kind were you find yourself "melting". Between the humidity and the heat, I was only able to spin about 1/2 ounce into fine singles. Having wool in your hands in this heat was not a good combination (esp. when I don't have air conditioning in the house!)

For those in the Tour-de-Fleece, good luck! Let me know how your spinning goes!

Finished Spinning Projects

I've been busy as of late. Between work, sewing, knitting, spinning, and various events...not to mention podcasting, well, it's been hectic. :-)

I finally got around to taking some photos of a variety of finished projects, including some amazing Targhee from Abstract Fibers; colorway=Malificient. How could I say no to almost all of my favorite colors

It spun up beautifully into a lovely marled skein. I forgot to take a photo of the skein, but here it in in a cake. 383 yards that will be made into something...not sure what yet.

Oh, and there's also my Tweed Spice from Tour De Fleece.

It went from the lovely top to singles

to a final 3-ply worseted

Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough for a sweater (slightly short of 900 yards), so I'm going to try and either find an appropriate vest / shrug to go with the yardage, or combine it with commercial to produce enough for a sweater.

TDF 2011: Final Day

One Pound of Fiber

This is 16 quills (1 ounce per quill) in my little Cthulu knitting bowl.

So, I finished my TDF 2011 goals 2 days ahead of schedule. So, I opted to spin the last 2 ounces of the fiber (as I had 18 ounces total, but only a goal of 16 ounces, or 1 pound) as extra credit. However, I only managed to finish one extra ounce due to Life (TM).

And will make a wonderful 3ply yarn....enough (hopefully) for a sweater.

TDF: The Home Stretch Day 21

It's almost the end of Tour de Fleece, and I'm working hard to accomplish my goal. I somewhat fell behind the pack last weekend because we had a trip planned that would leave me with several days of no spinning. Consequently, I tried to make up for it last week by spinning extra to make up for those last few days, for fear of being "rushed" at the end.
As a result, I'm really close to finishing my goal of 1lb of fiber for TDF. I have less than 1 ounce left of the required 16 ounces.

And then I looked at the TDF dates again....

I THOUGHT that TDF finished TODAY, 22nd of July, instead of July 24th. (Instead of 22 DAYS to finish, my brain transposed it to finishing BY the 22nd).

Silly me. I'm definitely prettier than smart in this case, it worked out in my favor as I am completely ahead of schedule!

Consequently, I will take these extra days to spin up the 2 additional ounces that would be left over from the fiber (I had a little over 1lb of fiber), and maybe, just maybe, I can also start plying.

AND, that would be EXTRA credit for TDF.

TDF 2011: Update - Day 13

Here's a photo of where I am right now with Tour de Fleece 2011:

• 9 1-ounce bumps spun.
• Another one ounce on the wheel.
• 5.5 ounces left to complete

TDF: days 1-4

Tour de Fleece has started well. Despite the holiday weekend, I've gotten off to a good start. According to my calculations, I just need to spin an average of 1/2 ounce of fiber per day in order to finish up a pound by the end of TDF.

So far, so good....even with the horrifically hot weather we've been having.

Tour De Fleece 2011

It's that time of year again for the Tour De Fleece Challenge on Ravelry. Again, I'll be spinning with Team Sasquatch for TDF2011

My goal? Attempt to spin 1 lb of silk/merino fiber from Ashland Bay in the colorway "Spice" within the specified time frame. This is only the singles. I get extra credit for plying. ;-)

I bought it because it reminded me of tabby cats. However, when I did my sampling, it came out a beautiful brown tweedy color.

For the samples, I've spun 1oz of fiber, and tried a 2 & 3ply to see what I liked using a 11:1 ration on my Ashford Kiwi.

2ply (Left) / 3ply (right)

I'm basically going with the 3ply sample.

So far, I've split my fiber into 1oz size bites so I can get them off the bobbins and onto quills when I'm done. There are about 16 (1oz) bumps there + 1 bump @ 1.5 oz.

Usually, 1lb of fiber is enough for a sweater for me, so this shall end up being one.

Tour de Fleece: Finale

My actual Tour de Fleece project (core-spinning) was done with plenty of time left over. So I added a secondary project (Stash Busting) to get through about 8oz of rainbow colored merino for the last half of the Tour.

I broke up the merino into .5 oz bumps, spun them up all the same (semi-worseted) then finished them differently so I could see what each would look like: Navajo plied, singles, 2ply.

I've finished (washed/thwacked) with the Navajo plied & the singles (which were washed & fulled for added strength. However, I still need to finish the second bobbin of the 2ply (I'm 3 bumps away from finishing it). BUT since I got my primary project finished, anything additional was gravy.

Here's a photo summary:

PRIMARY PROJECT

5 bobbins of this (probably 400 yards of singles at least):

To 100 yards of coiled & bobbled yarn:

SECONDARY PROJECT
(80% done)

From 8oz of colored merino:

To Navajo plied

2oz. 182 yards, heavy fingering weight, Navajo plied

and Single plied

Languishing Knitting

I haven't gotten much knitting done as of late, except during lunch breaks at work, because I've been spinning so much for Tour de Fleece. I feel like my Ribby Cardi is in never-ending cycle. I'll knit a few rounds, but see limited progress.

For now, I've got spinning on the brain. I'm thinking about all those yummy fibers in my Stash(TM) and the need to spin them all up!

Some of the Fibers in my Stash

Tour de Fleece: Picked Project

I didn't get much spinning done this past weekend, because we went out of town. However, I did spend extra time during the week spinning, as well as bringing my spindles with me to keep on spinning my wheels.

When I got back, I spent some time Navajo plying the resulting singles so I could preserve the long 8 color repeats.

2oz. 182 yards, heavy fingering weight, Navajo plied

While I was plying, DH looked over and asked me why I was running my yarn back through the wheel. He wanted to know if I was adding or removing twist. I told him I was plying. He said, "But there's only one bobbin."

I had to explain to him how to Navajo plied -- at least he's learning. :-)

Tour de Fleece: July 15th

My secondary project is going along well enough.

I'm currently on the mustard colored merino (having started on the orange-yellow and going counter-clockwise).

Each of the bumps was broken into quarters (1/4th). I'm still on the first quarter of each color.

Tour de Fleece

This past weekend, I finished up the last skein of the core ply yarn. I think I have about ~100 yards or so of coiled yarn.

That brown yarn? That's sock yarn to give you an idea.

Close-up -- Coils

To give you an idea, there 5 bobbins of this fiber.

I really really enjoyed spinning this up, but it took *forever* to finish ply a single bobbin. And I had some hiccups with my core snapping.

However, I solved the problem by winding some of the core thread onto a bobbin and letting it dangle while I spun. The bobbin then "unspun" any twist I was adding. It was a nifty way to keep the core from acquiring too much additional twist while spinning.

Now that I've finished the primary project, I've movedonto my secondary project, and spinning the following into to self-striping yarn. Each bump is 1oz of merino fiber. This is the order I am spinning the fiber (in clockwise order starting with the yellow at "noon").

I've broken out each bump into quarters (.25 oz per bump)

I was *originally* planning on core spinning it, but after I laid out all of the fiber in the order I wanted, it just called out to be a striped yarn.

I will navajo-ply it to maintain color-consistency.

(Previous Tour-de-Fleece posts)

Tour de Fleece: Day 5 - Photo Update

Here's a photo update of everything up to Day 5.

Pre- Tour de Fleece:

I started with this fiber (CVM, llama, silk)

that became these singles:

And I took this yarn (Jagger Main line Merino Cream)

And unspun some of the twist. (Note to self: I need to unspin a LOT OF the twist for future use).

Tour de Fleece
For Tour de Fleece, I've been plying the Jagger with the above singles to produce this:

and this:

I'm still working on the last two bobbins. And I have to say, I'm kinda having fun with core plying. It is a form of "potato-chip" spinning; I can't seem to stop.


(Previous Tour de Fleece posts can be found at this link.)