Tour de Fleece Update

I fell off that bandwagon.

My wheel is not yet back together (a few technical issues popped up during our move and have yet to be resolved, or, it's broken) and I hurt my shoulder by spinning too much on my drop spindle. So that was that for my first attempt at the Tour de Fleece.

I just attended Sock Summit 2011 where I bought more roving, so I need to fix my wheel and get back to injury free spinning.

I'll keep you posted.

Days Seven and Eight

I posted Thursday's spinning very late at night/early in the morning yesterday. I didn't spin at all yesterday, because we went to Mount Saint Helens.

Today I did yesterday's spinning.

And today's spinning.

The Green Monster and some Spinning

The big greenie is done!!! Two shots of it unblocked, proper blocked shots tomorrow.

A closeup, the lumpy bottom edge will look like lovely leafy lace once it's all sorted.

And a bigger shot, you can see we're still unpacking, please excuse the half empty boxes in the background.

And this year I decided to participate in the Tour De Fleece, where you set a challenging spinning goal and spin every day that the Tour De France rides. My goal is simple, to spin every day. I've been neglecting it.

So here goes, day one. A little bit of roving from Lorna's Laces. I forget the name of the colorway.

A Little More Detail

All cell phone photos, sorry for the crappy quality.

Josh, on the plane.


First sight of Ireland.

First pints, Bulmers.

Saturday morning.

And 5 minutes further down the street.

The Bride! This was very late and we were all quite drunk.

Salamanca, a lovey tapas place where we all met for dinner the day after the wedding.

Trinity College.

My peeps on Grafton Street, no family discount.

Delicious kebabs from Zaytoon's, highly recommended post pub.

Pints at O'Neil's.

The Guinness Storehouse, completely overrated, even when we were in the mood for touristy schlock. I say wikipedia how beer is made (if you aren't already aware) while you grab a pint somewhere else.

Josh, on a bus, whizzing past Christ Church. We did go in, another day.

First sight of London.

Parliament.

Dr. Laura Miller, my cousin, knows how to show a girl a good time.

Mr. Toby Joe, best dog of the trip!

Pigeon wanted in at Tate Modern.

Josh, pretty much how he looked the whole trip. (Camera to face)

Harrods.

Regent Street Apple Store.

Need I say more?

Our last look at Dublin.

My Loot!

Irish yarn purchased in Dublin at This Is Knit.

My new drop spindle, handmade on the Isle of Wight, with a little wool I purchased to play with, from the Handweaver's Studio in London.

Silk for spinning, also from the Handweaver's Studio.

Cashmere Merino blend, so soft, from Loop in Islington.

Lambswool, one of the softest things I've ever touched, also from Loop.

Reddish silk from Habu on a cone, a braid of hand dyed roving, and DK weight Wenslydale in an eggplant color (it just looks black), all from I Knit in Waterloo.

And on our last day Laura taught me how to crochet! She also bought me a wonderful little book, so I practiced all the way home on the plane and was able to complete my very first granny square. Yarn is GGH something or other purchased at Loop solely for the purpose of learning to crochet.   

The whole trip my travel knitting was the Clapotis Wrap knit out of a Cascade hand painted sock yarn. I got this far.

I actually ripped out the entire thing tonight. I had started it a little skinny, hoping to get by with one skein, I realized that that wasn't going to happen, so I bought another skein and am starting over, full sized. Why knit it skinny when I now have enough yarn?

Peanut Update

How much I've spun so far, with some clean unfluffed Peanut in the background.  I've been fluffing the fibers with a dog comb to make them more spinnable.  It's not the same as carding, but it works.  

And again, the money shot (quite literally!)  You can see the slight halo that will make my Peanut yarn super warm.  

Brown/Pink Three Ply

I'm making this into this...

My weekend was mostly spent on it.  

The first single of my planned three ply yarn from the Stitches roving.  And yes, I made a new little drop spindle. The two I already own have singles in progress that I didn't want to remove or finish first.  

See how much I have!  That wool rat is longer than my palm.  The wire is coat hanger and the whorl is about a 2" diameter (for scale).  I don't know how much more I can fit on the spindle.  My stubborn nature wants to spin it all as one continuous single, I'm thinking that won't happen though.   

Or this for scale!  You can see it's a bit thick-thin, not bad though.  

I pulled off the dyed mohair, then I split the brown wool down the middle, for three separate singles.  The only thing is that the ball of brown I've been spinning from doesn't seem any smaller (it's the bottom left ball).  In this photo it seems larger than the untouched brown ball, go figure.  

I'm pretty excited about this stuff.  

Spinning Peanut

So this is my first attempt at spinning peanut's fleece. You can see how well she cleaned up. This yarn is less consistent than I have been, but the wool was not prepared as well (read, I prepared it myself with a dog comb, instead of getting it from a mill). I feel like it'll get smoother with practice. Also, peanut's wool is crimpy-er than the merino and corriedale top that I've been working with, so this yarn will have a bit of a halo. Halo equals more warmth, so that's not too bad.

Plied Yarn

Two of the tiny skinny yarns I spun with my low tech spindle.  I plied them on my first spindle (the heavy one).  It came out pretty well.  I soaked the yarn and hung it to set the twist and dry.  Now it's skeined up.  

Baby Turkish Delight!

The spindle, and it's silk padding.


My new spindle arrived today! It's a Baby Turkish Delight from Jenkins Woodworking out in Oregon. It's very pretty, the arms are made of Osage Orange, and the spindle shaft is maple, I think (I might be lying about it being maple). Anyway, I took some quick phone photos when I opened it at work today. I'll take better ones soon. They wrapped it in some dyed wool roving and tissue paper, and the parts were padded with some silk fiber. I'm excited to try the silk. I spun a little wool with it tonight and I love it!



The outer wrapping, tissue paper and roving.