Tour de Fleece - Week 2

We are mostly thru week 2 of the Tour de Fleece, heading into the final days.  (The Tour finishes up this year on July 29th).

I finished up another spin, which is the 80/20 merino/silk roving from The Yarn Yard.  I finally dug out the information on it and it was from a co-op-type fiber club where we had 6 different indie dyers sending out packages that shared a common theme for the 6 months. The theme for this one was "Scottish Fauna", and I do think it did a great job of portraying salmon, red deer, rainbow trout and heather.

I spun up a 2-ply sportweight yarn with 294 yards/3.5 oz in the final skein.  I love the fall-ish colors in this one and the hues are close enough, I think it almost works as a neutral.  No specific plans (I'm a broken record with that, aren't I?) but one more out of unspun stash into yarn stash. 

Next up, I've put a Three Waters Farm SW merino/merino/silk blend on the wheel.  The colorway for this is "Satisfied With Summer".  Hoping to finish this before the end of July!

Tour de Fleece - Week 2

I'm pretty happy with my progress for the Tour so far this year!  I've been trying to have a goal of 15 minutes of spinning a day, or 30 if I can make that happen.

I finished up the Two If By Hand Polwarth roving, dyed in the "Calavera" colorway and LOVE how this one came out!

I wound up with 204 yards of a super squishy 2-ply worsted weight; final skein was 4 oz.  No specific plans for this one yet, but the little bright pops of jewel tones are so pretty.

Next up, which I just started yesterday is a braid from deep deep stash. This was part of a co-op type dyer's club where a different dyer sent out a braid each month based on a "nature" theme.  I can't remember what the inspiration for this one was, but it's 80/20 merino/silk and reminds me of fall leaves. 

This one went on the wheel yesterday, so not much in the way of progress to show yet. 

Tour De Fleece 2018

The annual Tour de Fleece is always great fun and a really nice way to focus on some spinning over the summer.  The Tour officially kicked off on Saturday, July 7th, and will run through Sunday, July 29th.  I'm a bit late getting started since I was in DC until Tuesday, but I did get home with enough time on Tuesday the 10th to at least put the start of a spin on my wheel.  (If you're a spinner and you'd like to come join Team Wooly Wonka, we've got a lovely small group of like-minded folks here.  Very casual - you can spin anything you'd like!)

My first spin for the Tour is another one out of stash.  This is Calavera from Two If By Hand, on Polwarth wool.

I decided I would try to get through a couple of braids in the next week or so at a DK-ish weight before I knuckle down and try to work on a thinner-grist spin.  I've got 2 Two If By Hand braids earmarked for the heavier-weight items and I think I'm going to tackle a small amount of a 50/50 angora bunny/silk blend I've got as my lighter-weight yarn - but that is subject to change based on my schedule of things around here. 

I've started the first half of the singles and hoping to get the first half finished up tomorrow.  Here's where that stands so far: 

I'm really looking forward to working on some more deep stash fibers for the Tour!

Spinning Friday - July 15, 2017

A bit over halfway through the Tour already!

I finished up the first braid I was working on.  Originally dyed as a gradient, I broke this up and spun for 2-ply self-striping socks.

Roving:  Superwash merino, dyed by Two If By Hand. in the Pirate Jenny colorway. 
Weight:  Fingering/sock weight.
Yardage/Ounces: 320 yards/3.7 oz

Next on the wheel, I started a braid of Falkland wool from FatCatKnits in the Cassidy colorway.  I'll be working on this over the next week or so.

Playing Catchup

Seriously y'all.... my blog has been really sorely neglected this year except for book posts.  I'm going to try to remedy that the second half of the year, so I'm going to try to get back to my prior Mon/Wed/Fri posting schedule.

Today being Friday, how about a spinning-related post?

Tour de Fleece 2017 is almost upon us!  It starts July 1st this year and runs thru the 23rd.  I've participated in the Tour for the last 5 or so years, I think. It's one of the few things I look forward to in the summertime, since I am not a hot-weather person and we usually take vacations in the fall or winter months.  I'm hoping to get my wheel freed up this weekend so I'm ready to go for July 1st.

I have been slowly, ever so slowly working on spins from stash this year.  Right now, I've got a club fiber from Winter 2011 from FatCatKnits on the wheel.  It's a 75/25 BFL wool/silk blend.  There were 2 colorways (as Ginny normally did for her Mixed Blessings Clubs), with 2.5 oz of each.  The original roving is jewel tones - one warm and one cool colorway set.

I had waffled a bit about how I wanted to spin these.  I originally thought about spinning them individually and keeping the colors separate, but I decided to go ahead and spin up the singles and ply them together in a 2-ply.  So far, here's where I am:

It's coming out like a pretty stained glass colorway.  It might be just the thing to use with a dark purple or black solid colorway in a 2-color project when it's finished..... someday. 

As a carrot to help keep me motivated to get this done, I pulled a random braid from a bin this morning that'll be my first braid on the wheel for TdF.  I'm not setting any specific yardage or ounces to spin goal.  I'm just going to go for 30 minutes of spinning time a day and whatever I get finished, I get finished. 

First up: Pirate Jenny from Two If By Hand on superwash merino.  

I'm pretty sure I'm going to split this braid (which is dyed as a gradient) up and do striped yarn for socks.  At least that's the current plan as of today - stay tuned. 

Have a great weekend!

Wooly Wonka Fibers Podcast - Episode 24

The newest episode is now live!  (Recorded July 31, 2016).

Tour De Fleece 2015: Days 19-20

Yesterday, day 20 of the Tour de Fleece was actually my last day of spinning for the Tour this year.  Today (Sunday), I've got an arm's long to-do list, so I won't finish my final spin until probably Tuesday of this week, but here's what I've got:

I had two 4-oz braids of mixed BFL from FatCatKnits in the "Quest" colorway, which is a Dungeons and Dragons themed colorway for a SAL, but I just liked the colors.

I want to use this as a companion colorway to the dark brown/almost black natural roving I spun up a few days ago, for a sweater.  So even tho this commercial combed top and not true roving, I spun it using a modified long-draw to try to keep some loft in it and at least mostly match the feel of the natural-colored handspun.

I was able to get all 8 oz of singles spun up thanks to some focused spinning time yesterday.

I'll be working on plying these this upcoming week, and I'll plan to do a Tour 2015 recap when those are done!  I've had a blast these last 3 weeks tho, and spun FAR more than I thought I would - meeting my goal of spinning at least an hour each of the active Tour days.  Woot!

Tour de Fleece: Days 15-19

I finished up the mixed breed "Black Coffee" roving plus tossed in a rest day on Monday for good measure.

I can't tell you how happy I am with this skein.  I rarely spin long-draw, but I'm not really sure why, as this came out absolutely wonderful!  The skein is squishy and soft and is very knitable.  The individual strands are much more even than I thought they'd be while I was spinning the singles.

Technical Specs:
Roving:  5.6 oz of a mixed breed dark brown/bit of gray roving from Nistock Farms, "Black Coffee".
Ply: 2-ply.
Weight: DK.
Yardage: 246 yards/4.1 oz.  I have a small amount of singles left that I've wound into a plying ball and it's resting before I ply that to use up every last bit of this fiber.

I'm thinking about combining this with a handpainted roving from FatCatKnits on mixed BFL.  I have 8 oz of the "Quest" colorway.

I thought I'd spin up this 8 oz with a semiwoolen technique and see where I am for yardage.  If I need to, I could always dye up 2-4 (or more) oz of the mixed BFL in an herby green or maybe a bronze and use that for another contrast color if needed it, or even grab 4 oz of a light silver gray natural roving, which might be really pretty as well. 

At any rate, I don't think I'll get another 8 oz of singles spun up before the Tour is over on Sunday, but I am going to get started on the first 4 oz worth of singles tonight!

Tour de Fleece 2015: Days 11-14

Yikes! I missed a lot of blog-posting days in there.  NO idea where the time went!

On days 11-13, I finished up the singles of the shetland wool/silk blend from FatCatKnits I was spinning, and plied those up into a squishy Aran-weight 2-ply yarn.

This was the fourth of the 6 braids I had pulled and earmarked for Tour spinning this year.  However, I decided that I wanted to switch things up a bit so.... I went stash diving again, and I came up with one of my oldest stashed roving items, a really dark brown roving shot through with a bit of gray.  This is "Black Coffee" from Nistock Farms and it's just labelled as a mixed breed.  (I suspect maybe cotswold, which is Nistock Farms main sheep breed, and something much softer and bouncier, maybe merino? rambouillet?  something like that?).  At any rate, this is not combed top, which I use much more frequently, but a true roving, and I am challenging myself to spin it using a long draw technique, which I also rarely use, so this is great practice.

I have a total of 5.6 oz of this roving and my plan is to get this spun up before the Tour's end, and then I'll use another 12 or so oz of a mixed BFL top, which I'll spin semi-woolen, to hopefully have enough yardage for a lightweight sweater with stripes at the yoke.  If nothing else, I'll have enough for a vest out of those 2 batches AND have the pleasure of seeing this particular fiber have a purpose in life.

Right now, I've got the first bobbin of singles spun up, which was my day 14 of the Tour.

My plan is to start bobbin #2 this afternoon!

Tour de Fleece 2015: Day 10

While today was officially a rest day, I went ahead and spun since I had taken a day off on Friday.  I started my FatCatKnits shetland wool/silk roving in the colorway "Grotto".

I'm spinning this up as a fractal spin, so right now, I'm spinning half of the braid end-to-end to get long color stripes.

This is close to an ounce of the singles spun up so far.  I'll split the other half into narrow strips so I get shorter color runs for the second bobbin.  I think this blend is one of my new favorites.  We'll see how it acts post-plying and a bath.

Tour de Fleece 2015: Day 9

And then I plied.   This finished up my Dragons roving into a finished skein that I'm in love with!

Technical Specs:
Roving:  Wooly Wonka Fibers custom-blended roving in the Dragons colorway, a blend of dyed Blue-faced Leicester, silk and glitter.
Ply: 2-ply.
Weight: Light fingering.
Yardage: 481 yards/4.7 oz.

I spun the singles up with a short backward draft/woolen technique.  I slightly underplied the singles, as I wanted this to be nice and drapey for a lace shawl project (TBD, but I know that's what I want to make with this).  I am not normally a red fan, but I love the gold sparkle in this and the bits of moody-broody almost-black/burnt red that are lurking under the brighter reds in this.

I'm halfway through the fiber I had earmarked for the Tour!  Although today (Monday, the 13th) if officially a rest day, I'll be spinning today since I took Friday off.  I'll be starting the FatCatKnits shetland wool/silk blend today.

Tour de Fleece 2015: Days 6-8

D and I took a little mini-vacation to ABQ this weekend, so my spinning time was a bit odd.  We headed down to ABQ on Friday, so I took that as my rest day instead of Monday, the 13th.  (I'll spin on Monday instead.)  Thursday p.m., which was day 6, I had finished up the first half of the 5 oz of my Dragons fiber.

I took my wheel and the remaining 2.5 oz of fiber with me, and after my photo shoot Saturday a.m., headed back to the hotel while D was taking a class.  I had a wonderfully relaxed afternoon, where I read a great book on Iceland and spun.

I managed to get all 2.5 oz spun up, so my singles are finished and ready to ply!

Hoping to get at least started on the plying for this tonight, although it may take me 2 days of plying to get this completed.

I did decide to go on to the shetland wool/silk roving from FatCatKnits next, so I'm also going to get that fiber prepped to spin for when I've finished this one up.

Tour de Fleece 2015: Day 5

It'll be a fairly boring group of photos for the next wee while, I'm afraid.  Since I've decided to spin up the Dragons roving fairly thinly, having just an hour to devote towards it nightly doesn't equal a lot of progress.

But here's where I am at the end of day 5's spinning for me.

In looking ahead - and yes, I'm using that as a carrot to keep myself focused on these skinny singles - I've got 3 other batches of fiber earmarked for the next several weeks.  Of those three, I had planned to spin 2 of them fairly finely as well.  One is a batt, and I'd like to also use that for a light fingering to laceweight yarn, and the other is a blend of baby camel and silk, and I suspect is going to require a short forward draft to be spun nicely, which is a slow technique for me.  My final choice is a shetland/silk 75/25 roving blend from FatCatKnits, colorway Grotto.

I think that may be the next up and likely a fractal spin to help keep some of the colors cleaner and less barberpole-y, so I may do some prep on that as well to get it ready to hit the wheel.

Tour de Fleece 2015: Day 4

While I had some extra time to spin over the weekend, I'm not being quite as productive during the work week.  I am meeting my goal of an hour of spinning a day, and today, Day 4 of the Tour, I worked on spinning singles from the Wooly Wonka Fibers "Dragons" blended roving.  This is a mix of BFL, silk and a bit of glitter in deep reds and a bit of black.

I took the ends of the two runs I had done for this custom blend to keep for myself, so I've actually got a full 5 oz to work with.  I'm shooting for a light fingering weight yarn to use for something lacey with this.  Probably a shawl, but we'll see how the yardage shakes out.

Slow going with the fine singles and reduced spinning time, but I'm feeling pretty good about getting started on my third fiber I've got earmarked for the Tour already with two 4-oz braids already spun up!